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CLASSIC QUOTATIONS : 



§. SMt-Suft 



OF THE 



WISE SPRITS OP al;. ages and all countries, 

PIT POU ALL MEN AND ALL HOUES. 



COLLECTED, ARRANGED, AND EDITED 



BY 

JAMES ELMES, 

H 

Author of "Memoirs of Sir Christopher Wren ;" "Dictionary of the 
Fine Arts; w "Lectures on Architecture," &a 




NEW YORK : 
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER, 

(BUCCESSOB TO 0. 8. FEANCI3 & CO.,) 

522 BROADWAY. 

1863. 



w 






Entebhd according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S63, 

By JAMES MILLER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



TO THE 

RIGHT HONOURABLE 

HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, 

&c. &c. &c, 

THE SCHOOLMASTER OF HIS AGE, 
AND ONE OF THE MOST THOUGHTFUL MEN 
OF HIS DAY, 
THE FOLLOWING COLLECTION OF 

THOUGHTS AND MAXIMS 
ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE 



TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



In giving to this work an American form, it 
is scarcely necessary to do more by way of 
recommendation, than to invite attention to its 
title, as verified by its Table of Contents. 

These fruit-thoughts of a student's learned 
leisure, may aptly become the seed-thoughts for 
many vacant and desultory hours of other men. 
Our American mind, although so often strained 
to the top of its bent, refuses a total relaxation. 
1 Studious of change, and pleased with novelty," 
it carries somewhat of its spontaneous activity 
even into its vacations, and finds, as Sir William 
Jones said of himself, suflicient repose in a 
change of occupation. 



IV PREFACE TO THE 

For such periods of remitted toil our book 
is designed, engaging the mind with suggestions 
rather than taxing it with problems. 

No matter what the natural complexion of 
the reader's taste, so that it be not impure — or 
his habit of mind, so that it be not morbid, — 
he will find among these " gleaned thoughts of 
wise spirits," enough that is racy, rare, and 
wholesome, to refresh his fancy, gratify his 
curiosity, or feed his faculties. It is in faQt 
one of the charms of the book, that it has gath- 
ered its contents from almost every latitude and 
longitude, and sometimes from the opposite 
poles of thought. 

Jew, Pagan, and Christian — classic and pa- 
tristic—primitive and recent authors — furnish 
each his quota to the design. Men are here 
found standing side by side who were wide 
apart in time, space, and character — agreeing in 
nothing, except that they thought on the same 
subject, and thought well. 



AMERICAN EDITION. V 

p 

Aristotle and Bacon are joined together , but 
joined, as ever, like wrestlers, the more closely 
from the fierceness of opposition. 

Justin Martyr, the earliest and most au- 
thentic Father of Ecclesiastical History, har- 
monizes with Jortin, the angry critic of the 
Fathers. 

St. Augustine moralizes with Dean Swift. 
Plato and Coleridge breathe into the same page 
the one spirit of the earliest and the latest phi- 
losophy. King Arthur and the great Frederick 
illustrate the kingly tact, the Son of Sirach and 
D'Israeli the social. The Talmud furnishes a 
sprinkling of wisdom out of its poverty, and the 
Bible from its overflow. 

Nor are the topics and authorship much 
more various than the styles of this little book. 

Hooker, in his voluminous majesty — Milton, 
in learned pomp — South, tense and pregnant — 
Jeremy Taylor, oozing forth sweetness like " the 



VI PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

irrepressible drops of the honey-comb" — Jeremy 
Collier, homely, dry, and true — Locke, manly 
and sensible, if sometimes inelegant — and Addi- 
son, always graceful, even though feeble ; — these 
are some of the sponsors for the little emigrant 
work, which we now introduce to the chance 
readers of our community. 

A. H. VINTON. 



PREFACE. 



The following collection of " thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn, 7 ' have been gath- 
ered from the literary treasures of all ages and 
all countries : they have been selected with a 
certain regard to uniformity of sentiment on 
moral, philosophical, and religious Truth ; and 
particularly as tending to prove the conformity 
of Reason with Revelation. 

The Editor, having suffered from deprivation 
of sight for more than four years, was compelled 
to turn his thoughts inward, to regale himself 
with the mental stores of his earlier years, to 
hear, from beloved lips, those truths which he 
had formerly read for himself; and like Milton, 
(would that the comparison were more apt as to 
himself,) to employ the pen of an affectionate 
daughter to write his dictations. In this man- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

ner, whilst totally blind, was his brief u History 
of Architecture in Great Britain," which ap- 
peared monthly in Laxton's Journal for 1847, - 
dictated, written, revised, and transcribed for 
the press. 

Lately, a slight return of vision in one eye 
enabled him, with the aid of magnifying glasses, 
to read at short intervals the strongly marked 
characters of the Hebrew and German languages, 
which he had formerly slightly cultivated in 
hours of leisure, and our beautiful English 
black-letter, and, occasionally, the large, well- 
defined Roman type of our early folios ; and by 
habit, to make extracts that he sometimes could 
not read. 

These circumstances opened new sources of 
occupation to him, and a release, in some degree, 
of his able and amiable reader and amanuensis 
from a portion of her daily task. The result 
has been this tithe-barn of gleanings, this Spici- 
legium of golden thoughts of wise spirits, who, 
though dead, yet speak, and whose voices are 
still heard among us. 



SCEIPTUEE QUOTATIONS. 



In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread, till thou return unto the ground ; 
for out of it wast thou taken : for dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 
— Genesis iii. 19. 

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
shall his blood be shed. — Genesis ix. 6. 

He kept him as the apple of his eye. — 
Judges xvi. 9. 

For whither thou goest, I will go ; and 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy peo- 
ple shall be my people, and thy God my 
God.— Ruth i. 16, 



X SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. 

Very pleasant hast thou been unto me : 
thy love to me was wonderful, passing the 
love of women.— 2 Samuel i. 26. 

Behold, there ariseth a little eloud out 
of the sea, like a man's hand. — 1 Kings 
xviii. 44. 

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord. — Job i. 21. 

There the wicked cease from troubling, 
and there the weary be at rest. — JoBiii. 17. 

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the 
sparks fly upward. — Job v. 7. 

I have been young, and now am old ; 
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, 
nor his seed begging bread. — Psalm xxxvii. 

25. ■ 

Mercy and truth are met together : 
righteousness and peace have kissed each 
other. — Psalm lxxxv. 10. 

Behold, how good and how pleasant it 
is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! 
— Psalm cxxxiil 1. 



SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. XI 

A soft answer turneth away wrath. — 
Proverbs xv. 1. 

Look not thou upon the wine, when it 
is red ; when it giveth his color in the cup ; 

at the last it biteth like a serpent 

and stingeth like an adder. — Proverbs 
xxiii. 31, 32. 

Kemember now thy Creator in the days 
of thy youth. — Ecclesiastes xii. 1. 

Man goeth to his long home. — Eccle- 
siastes xii. 5. 

Or ever the silver cord be loosed^ or the 
golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be 
broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken 
at the cistern.— Ecclesiastes xii. 6. 

Then shall the dust return to the earth 
as it was ; and the spirit shall return unto 
God who gave it. — Ecclesiastes xii. 7. 

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a 
bucket, and are counted as the small dust 
of the balance. — Isaiah xl. 15. 

*Is there no balm in Grilead ? is there no 
physician there ? — Jeremiah viii. 22. 



Xll SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. 

The fathers have eaten sour grapes, 
and the children's teeth are set on edge. — 
Ezekiel xviii. 2. 

Thou art weighed in the balances, and 
art found wanting. — Daniel v. 27. 

For they have sown the wind, and they 
shall reap the whirlwind. — Hosea viii. 7. 

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled 
therewith. — Ecclesiasticus xiii. 1. 

Great is truth and mighty above all 
things. — Esdras iv. 51. 

Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the 
salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it 
be salted ? — Matthew v. 13. 

But when thou doest alms, let not thy 
left hand know what thy right hand doeth. 
—Matthew vi. 3. 

Consider the lilies of the field, how they 
grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin, 
— Matthew vi. 28. 

^ Where their worm dieth not, and the 
fire is not quenched. — Mark ix. 44. 



SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. Xlll 

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou 
hast much goods laid up for many years ; 
take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 
— Luke xii. 19. 

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world ! — John i. 29. 

Gather up the fragments that remain, 
that nothing be lost — John vi. 12. 

It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive. — Acts xx. 35. 

Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed 
him ; if he thirst, give him drink : for in 
so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his 
head. — Komans xii. 20. 

I have planted, Apollos watered ; but 
God gave the increase. — 1 Corinthians 
iii. 6. 

Be not deceived : evil communications 
corrupt good manners. — 1 Corinthians 
xv. 33. 

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap. — Galatians vi, 7, 



XIV SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. 

Be ye angry, and sin not : let not the 
sun go down upon your wrath. — Ephesians 
iv. 26. 

Prove all things : hold fast that which 
is good. — 1 Thessalonians v. 21. 

Drink no longer water, but use a little 
wine for thy stomach's sake. — 1 Timothy 
v. 23. 

I have fought a good fight, I have fin- 
ished my course, I have kept the faith. — 
2 Timothy iv. 7. 

For whom the Lord loveth he ehasten- 
eth. — HEbREWS xii. 6. 

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, 
for thereby some have entertained angels 
unawares.— -Hebrews xiii. 2. 

Behold, how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth ! — James iii. 5. 

Charity shall cover the multitude of 
sins. — 1 Peter iv. 8. 

But the day of the Lord will come as a 
thief in the night. — 2 Peter iii. 10. 



FAMILIAE QUOTATIONS. 



ACQUAINTANCE. 

It is safer to affront some people than 
to oblige them ; for the better a man de- 
serves, the worse they will speak of him. — 
Seneca. 

If we engage into a large acquaintance 
and various familiarities, we set open our 
gates to the invaders of most of our time : 
we expose our life to a quotidian ague of 
frigid impertinences, which would make a 
wise man tremble to think of. Now, as 
for being known much by sight, and point- 
ed at, I cannot comprehend the honor that 
lies in that : whatsoever it be, every moun- 
tebank has it more than the best doctor. — 
Cowley. 

It is good discretion not to make too 
much of any man at the first ; because one 



XVI FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 

cannot hold out that proportion. — Lord 
Bacon. 

What makes us like new acquaintances 
is not so much any weariness of our old 
ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust 
at not being sufficiently admired by those 
who know us too well, and the hope of being 
more so by those who do not know so much 
of us. — La Bochefoucauld. 

ACQUIREMENT. 

That which we acquire with the most 
difficulty we retain the longest ; as those 
who have earned a fortune are usually more 
careful than those who have inherited one. 
— Colton. 

ACTING. 

There is no secret in the heart which our 
actions do not disclose. The most consum- 
mate hypocrite cannot at all times conceal 
the workings of the mind. — From the 
French. 

It is hard to personate and act a part 
long ; for where truth is not at the bot- 
tom, Nature will always be endeavoring to 
return, and will peep out and betray herself 
one time or other. — Tillotson. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. XY11 

ACTION. 
Deliberate with caution, but act with 
decision ; and yield with graciousness, or 
oppose with firmness. — Colton. 

ACTIVITY. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of Time. 
Let us then be up and doing ; 

With a heart for any fate, 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 

— Longfellow. 

adaptation. 

He alone is wise who can accommodate 
himself to all the contingencies of life ; but 
the fool contends, and is struggling, like a 
swimmer against the stream. — From the 
Latin. 

As long as you are engaged in the world, 
you must comply with its maxims ; be- 
cause nothing is more unprofitable than the 
wisdom of those persons who set up for re- 
formers of the age. "Tis a part a man can- 



XV111 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 



not act long, without offending his friends 
and rendering himself ridiculous. — St. Ev- 
remond. 

ADDRESS. 

A man who knows the world, will not 
only make the most of everything he does 
know, but of many things he does not know, 
and will gain more credit by his adroit mode 
of hiding his ignorance, than the pedant by 
his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudi- 
tion. — Colton. 

ADVERSITY. 

Adversity has the effect of eliciting tal- 
ents which, in prosperous circumstances, 
would have lain dormant. — Horace. 

Ask the man of adversity, how other men 
act towards him : ask those others, how he 
acts towards them. Adversity is the true 
touchstone of merit in both ; happy if it 
does not produce the dishonesty of mean- 
ness in one, and that of insolence and pride 
in the other. — Lord G-reville. 

advice. 
He who can take advice is sometimes 
superior to him who can give it. — Von 
Knebel. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. XIX 

AFFECTATION. 

I will not call vanity and affectation 
twins, because, more properly, vanity is the 
mother, and affectation is the darling daugh- 
ter ; vanity is the sin, and affectation is the 
punishment ; the first may be called the 
root of self-love, the other the fruit. Van- 
ity is never at its full growth till it spread- 
eth into affectation ; and then it is com- 
plete. — Saville. 

The unaffected of every country nearly 
resemble each other, and a page of our Con- 
fucius and your Tillotson have scarce any 
material difference. Paltry affectation, 
strained allusions, and disgusting finery, 
are easily attained by those who choose to 
wear them ; they are but too frequently 
the badges of ignorance, or of stupidity, 
whenever it would endeavor to please. — 
Goldsmith. 

age. 

Few people know how to be old. — La 

KOCHEFOUCAULD. 

There cannot live a more unhappy crea- 
ture than an ill-natured old man who is 
neither capable of receiving pleasures nor 



XX FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 

sensible of doing them to others. — Sir W. 
Temple. 

Yet time, who changes all, had altered him 
In soul and aspect as in age : years steal 
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb • 
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near 
the brim. — 'Byron, 

aims. 
What are the aims, which are at the 
same time duties ? They are the perfect- 
ing of ourselves, the happiness of others. — 
Kant. 

AMBITION. 

Moderation cannot have the credit of 
combating and subduing ambition — they 
are never found together. Moderation is 
the languor and indolence of the soul, as am- 
bition is its activity and ardor. — La "Roche- 
foucauld. 

Dreams, indeed, are ambition ; for the 
very substance of the ambitious is merely 
the shadow of a dream. And I hold am- 
bition of so airy and light a quality, that it 
is but a shadow's shadow. — Shakspeare. 

A slave has but one master, the ambi- 
tious man has as many masters as there 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. XXI 

are persons whose aid may contribute to 
the advancement of his fortune. — La 
Bruyere. 

ANGER. 
Fret, till your proud heart break ; 
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are , 
And make your bondsmen tremble. Must 

I budge ? 
Must I observe you ? Must I stand and 

crouch 
Under your testy bumor ? By the gods, 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
Though it do split you : for, from this day 

forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my 

laughter, 
When you are waspish. — Shakspeare. 

The continuance and frequent fits of an- 
ger produce an evil habit in the soul, called 
wrathfulness, or a propensity to be angry ; 
which ofttimes ends in choler, bitterness, 
and morosity ; when the mind becomes ul- 
cerated, peevish, and querulous, and, like a 
tbin, weak plate of iron, receives impres- 
sion and is wounded by the least occur- 
rence. — Plutarch. 



XX11 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 

Had I a careful and pleasant companion, 
that should show me my angry face in a 
glass, I should not at all take it ill ; to be- 
hold a man's self so unnaturally disguised 
and disordered, will conduce not a little to 
the impeachment of anger. — Plutarch. 

APPREHENSION. 

Better to be despised for too anxious ap- 
prehensions, than ruined by too confident a 
security. — Burke. 

ARTIFICE. 
There is a certain artificial polish — a 
common-place vivacity acquired by perpe- 
tually mingling in the beau Monde, which, 
in the commerce of the world, supplies the 
place of natural suavity and good humor, 
but is purchased at the expense of all orig- 
inal and sterling traits of character : by a 
kind of fashionable discipline, the eye is 
taught to brighten, the lip to smile, and the 
whole countenance to emanate with a sem- 
blance of friendly welcome, while the bosom 
is unwarmed by a single spark of genuine 
kindness and good-will. — Washington Ir- 
ving. 



CLASSIC QUOTATIONS. 



ADDISON'S STYLE. 

Whoever wishes to acquire a style 
which is familiar, but not coarse, and ele- 
gant, but not ostentatious, must give his 
days and nights to the volumes of Addi- 
son. — Dr. Johnson. 

ADDISON ON ARISTOTLE, POLYBIUS, AND 
CICERO. 

I mention Aristotle, Polybius, and 
Cicero, the greatest philosopher, the most 
impartial historian, and the most consum- 
mate statesman of all antiquity. — Addison. 

admiration. 
1. There is a pleasure in admiration ; 
and this is that which properly causeth ad- 



% Z A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

miration, when we discover a great deal in 
an object, which we understand to be ex- 
cellent ; and yet we see (we know not how 
much) more beyond that, which our under- 
standings cannot fully reach and compre- 
hend. — Tillotson. 

2. There is an admiration that is not 
the daughter of ignorance. This, indeed, 
stupidly gazeth at the unwonted effect ; 
but the philosophic passion admires and 
adores the Supreme Efficient. — Bichard 
Glanville. 

3. Neither Virgil nor Horace would 
' have gained so great reputation, had they 

not been the friends and admirers of each 
other. — Addison. 

4. Eesearches into the springs of nat- 
ural bodies and their motions, should awa- 
ken us to admiration at the wondrous 

wisdom of our Creator, in all the works of 

i 

nature. — Dr. Isaac Watts. 

THE AFFECTIONS. 

Affections,. such as joy, grief, fear, and 
anger, being, as it were, the sundry fashions 
and forms of appetite, can neither rise at 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 6 

the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet 
choose, but rise, at the sight of some things. 
— Dr. Hooker. 

ALMIGHTY POWER. 

1. It is as easy to conceive that an Almigh- 
ty Power might produce a thing out of no- 
thing, and to make that exist de novo, which 
did not exist before ; as to conceive the 
world to have had no beginning, but to have 
existed from all eternity. — Dr. South. 

2. Those who are born must die ; the 
dead are made to live, and the living to be 
judged ; to know, to make known, and to 
confess that He, the Almighty God, is the 
Former, the Creator, the Examiner, Judge, 
Witness and Complainant ; and that He is 
the Judge for all times to come. Blessed is 
He ! in whose presence there is no unright- 
eousness, no forgetfulness, no respect of 
persons, no acceptance of bribes, for every 
thing is his. Know, also, that every thing 
is done according to account. Let not 
thine imagination feed thee with the hope, 
that the grave is a place of refuge for thee : 
for without thy consent thou wert formed, 



4 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

without thy consent thou wert born, with- 
out thy consent thou livest, without thy 
consent thou must die, and without thy 
consent thou must hereafter render a re- 
sponsible account before the Sovereignty 
of the King of kings. Blessed be He. — 
Rabbi Eleazar Hakappar. 

3. In creating and making existent the 
world universal by the absolute act of his 
own word, God showed his power and his 
almightiness. — Sir Walter Raleigh. 

4. In the wilderness, the bittern and the 
stork, the unicorn and the elk, live upon 
His provisions, and revere his power, and 
feel the force of his almightiness. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

5. He is God, the Great, the Mighty, 
the Tremendous, the Merciful, the Gra- 
cious, the Benign, the Wise, the Faithful, 
the Just, and the Virtuous. Omniscience, 
Omnipresence, Omnipotence are His alone, 
whose Being knew no beginning, and can 
know no end. — The Mishna Torah. 

AMBITION. 
Ambition is the most troublesome and 



A THOUGHT-BOOK, O 

vexatious passion that can. afflict the sons 
of men. Virtue hath not half so much 
trouble in it, for it sleeps quietly without 
startings and affrighting fancies ; it looks 
cheerfully, smiles with much serenity, and 
though it laughs not often, yet it is ever 
delightful in the apprehensions of some 
faculty. It fears no man, nor no thing, nor 
is it ever discomposed, and hath no con- 
cernments in the great alterations of the 
world ; and entertains Death like a friend, 
and reckons the issues of it, as the greatest 
of its hopes. But Ambition is full of dis- 
tractions ; it teems with stratagems, as 
Rebecca with struggling twins, and is 
swelled with expectations as with a tym- 
pany. It sleeps sometimes as the wind in 
a storm, still and quiet for a minute, that it 
may burst out into an impetuous blast till 
the cordage of his heartstrings crack. It 
fears when none is nigh, and prevents 
things that never had intention, and falls 
under the inevitability of such accidents, 
which either could not be foreseen or not 
prevented. It is an infinite labor to make 
a man's self miserable, and the utmost ac- 



D A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

quist is so goodly a purchase, that he makes 
his days full of sorrow to enjoy the troubles 
of a three-years' reign. Therefore there is 
no greater unreasonableness in the world 
than in the designs of ambition ; for it 
makes the present certainly miserable, un- 
satisfied, troublesome and discontented, for 
the uncertain acquisition of an honor, 
which nothing can secure ; and besides a 
thousand possibilities of miscarrying, it 
relies upon no greater certainty than our 
life, and when we are dead, all the world 
sees who was the fool. — Jeremy Taylor. 

THE AMUSEMENTS OF A PEOPLE. 
In studying the character of a people, 
one inquiry should always be, what were 
their amusements ? We here get hold of 
great features, which often unriddle the 
rest. This is indispensably necessary 
where states have risen to cultivation. In 
the finer tracts of the temperate regions of 
the earth, you meet amusements that are 
elegant, and pleasures that are refined. 
Departing on either hand, to the south or 
to the north, you find taste to degenerate, 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 7 

and gratification to become impure. At 
length arriving at the extremities, refine- 
ment is utterly lost : — to give pleasure is 
to stupefy or to intoxicate, here by opium, 
there by brandy and tobacco. The happy 
intermediate regions enjoy the yvresse du 
sentiment. Is the philosopher to set at 
naught these distinctions ? Is he to lay 
no stress upon the different state of the 
arts ? Is he to imagine that it imports not 
that the peasant in Muscovy subsists on 
garlic, and solaces himself with ardent 
spirits ; and in Italy that he feeds on a 
water-melon, and goes forth with a guitar 
on his back to the plough? — Du. Robert- 
son. 

ANAGRAMMATISM. 
The only quintessence that hitherto the 
alchymy of wit could draw out of names, 
is anagrammatism or metagrammatism ; 
which is a dissolution of a name truly 
written into its letters as its elements, and 
a new connection of it by artificial trans- 
position, without addition, subtraction, or 
change of any letter, into different words, 



O A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

making some perfect sense applicable to 
the person named.* — Camden. 

OUR ANCESTORS. 

1. These later ages of the world have 
declined into a softness above the effemi- 
nacy of Asian Princes, and have contracted 
customs which those innocent and health- 
ful days of our Ancestors knew not ; whose 
piety was natural, whose charity was ope- 
rative, whose policy was just and valiant, 
and whose (Economy was sincere and pro- 
portionable to the dispositions and requi- 
sites of nature. — Jeremy Taylor. 

2. A tenacious adherence to the rights 
and liberties transmitted from a wife and 

# There are few more complete and applicable ana- 
grams than that made by Pere Finardi on Magliabechi. 
A,n,t,o,n,i,u,s, M,a,g,l,i,a,b,e,c,h,i,u,s. Isunusbib- 
liotheca magna. That on H,o,r,a,t,i,o, N,e,l,s,o,n. Honor 
est a NilOj is more complete than the former, which has 
a redundant letter. That on W,i ; l,l,i,a,m, N,o,y, At- 
torney General to King Charles L, is another good 
specimen of this alcyhmy of wit, I moyl in law, being 
expressive of his toilsome drudgery. That also by 
William Oldys on himself, is good, but less perfect : 
In word and will I am a friend to you, 
And one friend Old is worth a hundred new. — Ed. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. V 

virtuous ancestry, public spirit and a love 
of one's country, are the support and orna- 
ment of a government. — Addison. 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

1. To suppose an ancient title, though 
lesser in degree, is preferable to one of 
greater rank of later creation, is, as if one 
should affirm, that an old shilling is better 
than a new half-crown, though the metal 
and the impression should be the same in 
both. — Jere3iy Collier. 

2. Not that the moderns are born with 
more wit than their predecessors ; but find- 
ing the world better furnished at their com- 
ing into it, they have more leisure for new 
thoughts, more light to direct them, and 
more hints to work upon. — Ibid. 

3. Those who come last seem to enter 
with advantage. They are born to the 
wealth of antiquity. The materials for 
judging are prepared, and the foundations 
of knowledge are laid to their hands. Be- 
sides, if the point was tried by antiquity, 
antiquity would lose it ; for the present 
age is really the oldest and has the largest 
experience to plead. — Ibid. 



10 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

ANCIENT KNIGHTHOOD. 
A cowherd once applied to Arthur the 
renowned King of Britain, to make his son 
a knight. " It is a great thing thou askest," 
said Arthur, and enquired whether this en- 
treaty proceeded from him or from his son ? 
The old man replied, "From my son, not 
from me ; for I have thirteen sons, and 
they will all perform the work I put them 
to ; but this boy will not labor for me, for 
any thing that I and my wife may say; 
but he will be alway shooting and casting 
darts, and glad to see battles and to behold 
knights, and always day and night desireth 
of me to be made a knight." The king 
commanded the cowherd to fetch all his 
sons ; they were all shapen much like the 
poor man ; but Tor was like none of them 
in shape or countenance ; and so king 
Arthur knighted him. — King Arthur, an 
old British Romance. 

ANGER. 
1. Leontius Patricius, Bishop of Cy- 
prus, was one day extremely and unreason- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 11 

ably angry with John the Patriarch of Alex- 
andria. At evening the Patriarch sent a ser- 
vant to him with this message, Sir, the sun 
is set ; upon which Patricius reflecting and 
the grace of God making the impression 
deep, visible and permanent, he threw 
away his anger and became wholly subject 
to the counsel and spiritual aids of the 
Patriarch. — Leontius, Bishop of Cyprus. 
Aatobiog. ch. 14. 

2. Anger is uneasiness or discomposure 
of the mind, upon the receipt of any injury, 
with a present purpose of revenge. — Locke. 

3. Anger is a transient hatred, or, at 
least, very like it. — Dr. South. 

ANGLICISMS AND GALLICISMS. 
The Abbe Sicard, well known as the 
humane and intelligent teacher of the deaf 
and dumb at Paris, took occasion to remark 
to some travellers, that of all languages the 
English was the most simple, the most 
rational, and the most natural in its con- 
struction. As a proof of this assertion he 
observed, that his pupils, as they began to 
learn the means of conveying their thoughts 



12 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

by writing, constantly made use of Angli- 
cisms. — Le Maitre's Paris. 

ARISTOTLE'S MORALITY. 
Aristotle as a teacher of morality may 
satisfy your judgment, but he seldom 
warms your heart. As you read his work, 
you assent to the proof of his propositions, 
but he does not rouse you to action. He 
shows you indeed the beauty of virtue ; 
but it is in the abstract, not the concrete. 
How superior to such cold and formal 
morality is the ardor which the Christian 
Revelation inspires ! There is more ex- 
citement to virtuous conduct in the single 
Parable of The Good Samaritan, than in 
all the Nicomachean or the great morals of 
Aristotle. — Henry Kett. 

ARITHMETIC. 
Nothing amuses more harmlessly than 
computation, and nothing is more often 
applicable to real business or speculative 
inquiries. A thousand stories, which the 
ignorant hear and believe, die away when 
the computist takes them within his grasp. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 13 

Numerical inquiries give entertainment in 
solitude by the practice, and reputation in 
public by the effect. — Dr. Johnson. 

ARROGANCE. 

1. When Diogenes came to Olympia and 
perceived some Rhodian youths dressed 
with great splendor and magnificence, he 
said with a smile of contempt, " This is 
all arrogance." Afterwards some Lacede- 
monians came in his way, as mean and as 
sordid in their attire, as the dress of the 
others was rich, " This," said he, " is also 
arrogance." — JElian. 

2. A man that loves to be peevish and 
paramount, and to play the sovereign at 
every turn, does but blast the blessings of 
life, and swagger away his own enjoy- 
ments ; and not to enlarge upon the folly, 
not to mention the injustice of such a 
behavior, it is always the sign of a little, 
unbenevolent temper. It is disease and 
discredit all over, and there is no more 
greatness in it, than in the swelling of a 
dropsy. — Jeremy Collier. 



14 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



ART. 
Arts that respect the Mind, were ever 
reputed nobler than those which serve the 
body. — Ben Jonson. 

ARTIFICE OF FACTION. 
To tell the people they are free, is the 
common artifice of the factious and sedi- 
tious. These state-gipsies pick the pockets 
of the ignorant with this species of cant, 
and with informing them what mighty 
fortunes they are born to. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

ASSAULTS OF THE DEVIL. 
Saint Cyprian # often observes and 
makes much of the discourse, that the 
Devil when he makes a battery, first views 
the strengths and situation of the place. 
His sense, drawn out of the cloud of an 
allegory, is this. The Devil first considers 
the constitution and temper of the person 
he is to tempt, and where he observes his 
natural inclination apt for a vice, he pre- 

# Serm. de zelo. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 15 

sents him with objects and opportunity, 
and arguments fitting for his caitive dispo- 
sition ; from which he is likely to receive 
the smaller opposition, since there is a 
party within, that desires his intromission. 
Thus to lustful natures he represents the 
softer whispers of the spirit of fornication. 
To the angry and revengeful he offers to 
consideration, the satisfactions and content 
of a full revenge, and the emissions of 
anger. To the envious he makes pane- 
gyrics of our rivals and swells our fancies 
to opinion, and our opinion to self-love, 
self-love to arrogance, and these are sup- 
ported by contempt of others, and all 
determine upon envy and expire in malice. 
Let us be sure that the Devil take not a 
helve from our own branches to fit his axe, 
that so he may cut down the tree. — Jere- 
my Taylor. 

ASSURANCE. 
1. The obedient and the man of practice, 
shall outrun all their doubts and ignoran- 
ces ; till persuasion pass into knowledge, 
and knowledge advance into assurance. — 
Dr. South. 



16 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. This is not the grace of hope, but a 
good natural assurance or confidence, Avhich 
Aristotle observes young men to be full of 
and old men not so inclined to. — Ham- 
mond. 

ATHEISM. 

1. God never wrought miracles to con- 
vince Atheism, because his ordinary works 
convince it. — Lord Bacon. 

2. Atheism is the result of ignorance 
and pride ; of strong sense and feeble rea- 
sons ; of good eating and ill living. It is 
the plague of society, the corrupter of 
manners, and the underminer of proper- 
ty. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. No atheist, as such, can be a true 
friend, an affectionate relation or a loyal 
subject. — Dr. Bentley. 

4. An atheist, if you will take his word 
for it, is a very despicable mortal. Let us 
describe him by his tenet, and copy him a 
little from his own original. He is, then, 
no better than a heap of organized dust, a 
stalking machine, a speaking head without 
a soul in it. His thoughts are bound by 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 17 

the laws of motion, his actions, are all pre- 
scribed. He has no more liberty than the 
current of a stream or the blast of a tem- 
pest ; and where there is no choice there 
can be no merit. — Jeremy Collier. 

ATHENIAN JURIES. 
I have always been of opinion, with the 
learned antiquary Dr. Pettingal, that the 
Athenian Judges might with propriety be 
called Jurymen; and that the Athenian 
Juries differed from ours in very {ew par- 
ticulars. — Sir William Jones. 

AVARICE. 

1. Avarice is insatiable and is always 
pushing on for more. — L' Estrange. 

2. Avarice keeps a man always in the 
wheel and makes him a slave for his life- 
time ; and his head or his hands are per- 
petually employed. When one project is 
finished his inclinations roll to another, so 
that his rest is only variety of labor. This 
evil spirit throws him into the fire and 
into the water and all sorts of hazards and 
hardships ; and when he has reached the 



18 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

tombs, he sits naked and out of his right 
mind. — Jeremy Collier. 

LORD BACON ON SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 
Another defect I note, wherein I shall 
need some alchymist to help me, which 
calls upon men to sell their books and to 
build furnaces ; quitting and forsaking Mi- 
nerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and 
relying upon Vulcan. But certain it is, 
that unto the deep, fruitful and operative 
study of many sciences, especially Natural 
Philosophy and Physic, books be not the 
only instruments, wherein also the benefi- 
cence of men hath not been altogether 
wanting : for we see spheres, globes, astro- 
labes, maps and the like, have been pro- 
vided as appurtenances to Astronomy and 
Cosmography, as well as books. We see, 
likewise, that some places instituted for 
Physic have annexed the commodity of 
gardens for simples of all sorts, and do 
likewise command the use of dead bodies 
for Anatomies. But these do but respect a 
few things. In general, there will hardly 
be any main proficience in the disclosing 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 19 

of Nature, except there be some allowance 
for expenses about experiments; whether 
they be experiments appertaining to Vul- 
canus or Daedalus, furnace or engine, or 
any other kind. And therefore as secre- 
taries and spials of Princes and States, 
bring in bills for intelligence, so you must 
allow the spials and intelligencers of Na- 
ture, to bring in their bills ; or you shall 
be ill advertised. And if Alexander made 
such a liberal assignation to Aristotle of 
treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowl- 
ers, fishers, and the like, that he might 
compile an history of Nature : much better 
do they deserve it, who travail in the arts 
of Nature. — Lord Bacon. 

BAD COMPANY. 
Bad company is like a nail driven into 
a post, which, after the first and second 
blow, may be drawn out with little diffi- 
culty ; but being once driven up to the 
head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw 
it out, but which can only be done by the 
destruction of the wood. — St. Augustine. 



20 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

BAD SOIL. 
He that sows his grain upon marble, will 
have many a hungry belly before his har- 
vest. — Arbuthnot. 

BIBLICAL WRITERS. 
It doth not appear that it ever came into 
the mind of these writers, how this or the 
other action would appear to mankind, 
or what objections might be raised against 
them. Bat without at all attending to this, 
they lay the facts before you, at no pains 
to think whether they would appear cred- 
ible or not. If the reader will not believe 
their testimony, there is no help for it ; 
they tell the truth and attend to nothing 
else. Surely this looks like sincerity, and 
that they published nothing to the world 
but what they believed themselves. — Du- 

CHAL. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

1. Biography sets before us the whole 

character of a person who has made himself 

eminent, either by his virtues or his vices ; 

shows us how he came first to take a right 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 21 

or a wrong turn, the prospects which invited 
him to aspire to higher degrees of glory, 
or the delusions which misled him from his 
virtues and his peace ; the circumstances 
which raised him to true greatness, or the 
rocks on which he split and sunk to infamy. 
And how can we more effectually, or in a 
more entertaining manner, learn the impor- 
tant lesson, what we ought to pursue, and 
what to avoid. — Dr. Burgh. 

2. A Life which is worth reading, ought 
never to have been written. — Sir James 
Mackintosh. 

3. Our Grub-street Biographers, watch 
for the death of a great man, like so many 
undertakers, on purpose to make a penny 
of him. — Addison. 

BLANK VERSE. 
He who reads Milton's Paradise Lost, 
with a true relish for its beauties, will 
never embrace the opinion of the critic 
who asserted that " blank verse is verse 
only to the eye." Blank verse is the glory 
of the English Poetry, which the French 
language, from its want of energy and 



22 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

vigor, cannot support. It gives great free- 
dom to the poet, and allows him to take 
the most lofty flights, unshackled by the 
chains of rhyme. It requires, however, 
great elevation of thought, splendor of im- 
agery, and elegance of diction, to prevent 
him from sinking into prose. And as the 
poet is under no necessity to close the sense 
with the couplet, he must " bridle in his 
struggling muse," lest she be two excursive, 
and range beyond the proper bounds of de- 
scription. It gives greater scope of expres- 
sion, and greater variety of pause, than 
rhyme, and is well adapted to the strains 
of the Tragic and the Pastoral, as well as 
to the Epic Muse : as is evident from Shak- 
speare's Tragedies and Thomson's Seasons. 
— Henry Kett. 

BLUNTNESS. 
Manage disputes with civility ; whence 
some readers will be assisted to discern 
a difference betwixt bluntness of speech 
and strength of reason. — Hon. Robert 
Boyle. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 23 

BLUSTERING. 

1. Virgil has the majesty of a lawful 
Prince, and Statins only the blustering of a 
tyrant. — Dryden. 

2. A coward makes a great deal more 
blustering than a man of honor. — L' Es- 
trange. 

BODY AND MIND. 
A thought strongly encouraged by jus- 
tice and duty, well warmed by shame and 
honor, rage and revenge, makes the spirits 
rush into the nerves with unusual vigor. 
This sudden effort of the mind, raises the 
whole of the powers of nature, strains the 
muscles, and makes every atom, as it were, 
sally out with it. This I take to be an 
evidence that the mind has a great com- 
mand over the body, and can rouse or lay 
it asleep at pleasure ; and is a good argu- 
ment to prove the independent liberty of 
the will, and the distinction between mat- 
ter and spirit. — Jeremy Collier. 

BOLINGBROKE'S IGNORANCE. 
Lord Bolingbroke seemeth to take a 
particular pleasure in railing at pedants, at 



24 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the same time that he is himself one of the 
most pedantic of writers, if it be pedantry 
to make a vain ostentation of learning, and 
to quote authors without either reading or 
understanding them, or even knowing so 
much as who and what they are. " The 
Codex Alexandrinus,"* saith he, " we owe 
to George the Monk." We are indebted 
indeed to George the Monk, more usually 
called Syncellus, for what is entitled Vetus 
Chronicon. f But the Codex Alexandrians 
is quite another thing ; it is, as all the learned 
know, the famous Greek MS. of the Old 
and New Testament, brought originally 
from Alexandria, and presented to Charles 
I., and now in the king's library, of which 
it doth not appear that George the Monk 
knew anything, and, it is evident, that his 
Lordship knew nothing. If he meant to 
say the Chronicum Alexandrinum, that is 
still another thing, and the work of another 
author. His Lordship is of opinion, that 
" Virgil, % in those famous verses, Excndent 

# Letter I. p. 262, 4to. ed. 

f An ancient Chronicle of the Egyptians. — Ed. 

% Letter V. p. 340. —7£. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 25 

alii, &c, might have justly ascribed to his 
countrymen, the praise of writing History 
better than the Grecians." But which are 
the Roman Histories that are to be prefer- 
red to the Grecian? Why, " the remains, 
the precious remains," says his Lordship, 
"of Sallust, of Livy, and of Tacitus!" 
But it happened that Virgil * died before 
Livy had written his history, and before 
Tacitus was born. And is not this an ex- 
cellent chronologer now, to correct all an- 
cient history and chronology sacred and 
profane? His Lordship is likewise pleased 
to say " that Don Quixote f believed, but 
even Sancho doubted : " and it may be 
asserted on the other side, that Sir Isaac 
Newton believed the prophecies, though 
his Lordship did not ; the principal reason 
of which may be found, perhaps, in the 
different life and morals of the one and the 
other. Nay, the wisest politicians and his- 
torians have been believers, as well as the 

* Virgil died a. c. 735. Livy, according to Dodwell, 
finished his history in 745. Tacitus was Consul in 850. 
See Fabricius. 

f Letter IV. p. 130 



26 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

greatest philosophers. Raleigh and Clar- 
endon believed ; Bacon and Locke believed ; 
and where then is the discredit to Revela- 
tion, if Lord Bolingbroke was an infidel ? 
" A scorner," as Solomon saith,* "seeketh 
Wisdom and findeth it not." — Bishop 
Newton. 

BOOKS. 
1. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, 
and for ability. Their chief use for de- 
light is in privateness and retiring ; for 
ornament is in discourse, and for ability is 
in the judgment and disposition of business. 
For expert men can execute, and, perphaps, 
judge of particulars, one by one ; but the 
general counsels and the plots and mar- 
shalling of affairs, come best from those 
that are learned. Read not to contradict 
and confute, but to weigh and consider. 
Some books are to be tasted, others to be 
swallowed, and some few to be digested. 
That is, some books are to be read only in 
parts, others to be read, but not curiously ; 
and some few to be read wholly and with 

# Proverbs xiv. 6. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 27 

diligence and attention. Reading maketh 
a full man, conference a ready man, and 
writing an exact man. Histories make 
men wise, poets witty, the mathematics 
subtile, natural philosophy deep, moral 
grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend. — 
Lord Bacox. 

2. Books are a guide in youth, and an 
entertainment for age. They support us 
under solitude, and keep us from becoming 
a burden to ourselves. They help us to 
forget the crossness of men and things, 
compose our cares and our passions, and 
lay our disappointments asleep. When we 
are weary of the living, we may repair to 
the dead, who have nothing of peevish- 
ness, pride or design in their conversation. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

BOOKS v. TRAVELLERS. 
1. The observations I have made in the 
countries, through which I have travelled, 
in general contradict the characters of those 
nations, commonly ascribed to them in books 
and in conversation. Thus, for example, 
in the Spaniards with whom I have been 



28 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

acquainted, I could never find the gravity 
and strictness by which that nation is gen- 
erally supposed to be distinguished. In the 
Frenchman I have seldom discovered that 
winning amiableness of disposition, and 
that high degree of politeness and delicacy, 
which are inseparable from it, that are uni- 
versally attributed to him. I never observed 
that, in his own country, the Englishman 
was that melancholy, reserved and gloomy 
being, for which he is proverbial. The 
German is by no means the drunkard, or 
the clownish uncivilized brute, that in many 
countries he is described to be. Am I to 
suppose, that all the individuals with whom 
I was acquainted, were exceptions, and that 
the observations of so many years were 
false? Or may it not rather be asserted, 
that the characters of whole nations, as 
delineated in early works, from which 
probably they have got into every one's 
mouth, are incorrect ? * it is much easier to 
collect ideas of men and things from books 
than from real life, and it is inconceivable 
how ideas once adopted, continue to be 
propagated. — Charles Gottlob Ku'ittner. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 29 

2. Not long ago the map of the world, 
in China, was a square plate, the greater 
part of which was occupied by the provinces 
of that vast empire, leaving on its skirts a 
few obscure corners, into which the wretch- 
ed remainder of mankind were supposed to 
be driven. If you have not the use of our 
letters, nor the knowledge of oar books, 
said a Mandarin to an European Mission- 
ary, what literature or what science can 
you have ? — Dr. Adam Ferguson. 

BRAVERY. 

1. A brave man is clear in his discourse, 
and keeps close to truth. — Aristotle. 

2. It denotes no great bravery of mind 
to do that out of a desire of fame, which 
we could not be prompted to by a generous 
passion for the glory of Him that made us. 
— Addison. 

THE BRITISH MONARCHY. 

As long as the British Monarchy, not 

more limited than fenced by the orders of 

the State, shall, like the proud Keep of 

Windsor, rising with majesty of proportion, 



30 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

and girt with the double belt of its kindred 
and co-eval towers, as long as this awful 
structure shall oversee and guard the pro- 
tected land ; so long* will the British con- 
stitution last. They who are convinced of 
this, His (He who gave our nature to be 
perfected by our virtue) will, which is the 
Law of laws, and the Sovereign of sove- 
reigns, cannot think it reprehensible that 
this our corporate fealty and homage, this 
our recognition of a Seignory Paramount, 
I had almost said this oblation of the State 
itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar 
of universal praise, should be performed, as 
all Public solemn acts are performed, in 
Buildings, in Music, in Decorations, in 
Oratory, in dignity of Persons, according 
to the customs of mankind ; taught by 
their nature, that it is with modest splen- 



# Mr. Burke had evidently in his mind, the saying of 
the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims, who visited Rome in the 
eighth century, " Quamdiu stabit Colosseus stabat 
£oma, quando cadet Colosseus cadet et- Roma ; quando 
cadet Roma, cadet et Mundus." The first part of 
which is thus rendered by a modern poet : 

" While stands the Colosseum Rome shall stand." — Ed. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 31 

dor, with unassuming state, with mild 
majesty and sober pomp. For those pur- 
poses, some part of the wealth of the 
country is as usefully employed, as it can 
be in forwarding the luxury of individuals. 
It is the public ornament, it is the public 
consolation, it nourishes the public hope. 
The poorest man finds his own importance 
and dignity in it, whilst the wealth and 
pride of individuals at every moment makes 
the man of humble rank and fortune sensi- 
ble of his inferiority, and degrades and 
vilifies his condition. — Burke. 

BROTHERHOOD. 
So it be a right to Govern, whether you 
call it Supreme Fatherhood, or Supreme 
Brotherhood, will be all one, provided we 
know who has it. — Locke. 

THE BUSINESS OF A SCHOLAR. 
To talk in private, to think in solitude, 
to inquire or to answer inquiries, is the 
business of a scholar. He wanders about 
the world without pomp or terror; and is 
neither known nor valued but by men like 
himself. — Dr. Johnson. 



32 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

CALUMNY. 
He that lends an easy and credulous ear 
to calumny, is either a man of very ill 
morals, or has no more sense and under- 
standing than a child. — Menander. 

CASTLES IN THE AIR. 
In all assemblies, though you wedge 
them ever so close, we may observe this 
peculiar property, that over their heads 
there is room enough ; but how to reach it 
is the difficult point. To this end the phi- 
losopher's way in all ages has been by 
erecting certain edifices in the air. But 
whatever practice and reputation these 
kind of structures have formerly possessed, 
or may still continue in, not excepting even 
that of Socrates, when he was suspended 
in a basket to help contemplation ; I think, 
with due submission, they seem to labor 
under two inconveniences. First, that the 
foundations being laid too high, they have 
been often out of sight, and ever out of 
hearing. Secondly, that the materials being 
very transitory, have suffered much from 
the inclemencies of air, particularly in these 
north-west regions. — Swift. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 63 

CAUSE AND EFFECT. 
As we use to deny the effect to the in 
strumental cause, and attribute it to the 
principal in the manner of speaking, when 
our purpose is to affirm a thing to be the 
principal and of chief influence : — so we 
say, it is not the good lute, but the good 
hand that makes the music : it is not the 
body but the soul that is the man, and yet 
he is not the man without both. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

CHANCE. 
The adequate meaning of Chance, as 
distinguished from Fortune, is, that the 
latter is understood to befall only rational 
agents, but Chance to be among inanimate 
bodies. Chance is but a mere name, and 
really nothing in itself; a conception in our 
minds, and only a compendious way of 
speaking, whereby we would express, that 
such effects as are commonly attributed to 
chance, were verily produced by their true 
and proper causes, but without the design 
to produce them. — Dr. Bentley. 
3 



34 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

CHARITY, (RICHES OF.) 
He hath riches sufficient, who hath 
enough to be charitable. — Sir Thomas 
Browne. 

CHARITY SERMONS. 

1. " He that giveth to the poor, lendeth 
to the Lord," saith the Royal Sage of Judah. 
There is more rhetoric in that one sentence, 
than in a library of Sermons ; and indeed 
if those sentences were understood by the 
reader with the same emphasis as they 
were delivered by the author, we needed 
not those volumes of instructions, but 
might be honest by an epitome. — Ibid. 

2. As for our Sermons, be they never so 
sound and perfect, God's word they are not, 
as the sermons of the prophets were ; no, 
they are but ambiguously termed his word, 
because His Word is commonly the subject 
whereof they treat, and must be the rule 
whereby they are framed. — Hooker. 

CHATHAM'S ELOQUENCE. 
Lord Chatham's eloquence was of every 
kind, and he excelled in the argumentative, 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 35 

as well as the declamatory way. But his 
invectives were terrible, and uttered with 
such energy of diction and with such dig- 
nity of action and countenance, that he 
intimidated those who were the most willing 
and the most able to encounter him. Their 
arms fell out of their hands, and they 
shrunk under the ascendant which his 
genius gained over theirs. — Lord Ches- 
terfield. 

CHEERFULNESS v. MIRTH. 
I have always preferred cheerfulness to 
mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the 
former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is 
short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and 
permanent. Those are often raised into 
the greatest transports of mirth, who are 
subject to the greatest depressions of mel- 
ancholy ; on the contrary, cheerfulness, 
though it does not give the mind such an 
exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling 
into any depths of Sorrow. Mirth is like 
a flash of lightning, that breaks through a 
gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment ; 
cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light 



30 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

in the mind, and fills it with a steady and 
perpetual serenity. Cheerfulness bears the 
same friendly regard to the mind as to the 
body ; it banishes all anxious care and dis- 
content ; soothes and composes the passions 
and keeps them in a perpetual calm. — Ad- 
dison. 

CHOICE OF COUNSELLERS. 
Beware of acounseller, and know before 
what use there is of him ; for he will coun- 
sel for himself; lest he cast the lot upon 
thee, and say unto thee, thy way is good : 
and afterwards he stand on the other side, 
to see what shall befall thee. Consult not 
with one that suspecteth thee : and hide thy 
counsel from such as envy thee. Neither 
consult with a woman touching her of whom 
she is jealous ; neither with a coward in 
matters of war ; nor with a merchant con- 
cerning exchange ; nor with a buyer of sell- 
ing ; nor with an envious man of thankful- 
ness ; nor with an unmerciful man touching 
kindness ; nor with the slothful for any 
work ; nor with an hireling for a year, of 
finishing work ; nor with an idle servant of 
much business ; hearken not unto these in 
any matter of counsel. — Jesus Ben Sirach. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 37 



CHRISTIAN FORTITUDE. 
The fortitude of a Christian consists in 
patience ; not in enterprises which the 
poets call Heroic, and which are commonly 
the effects of interest, pride and worldly 
honor. — Dryden. 

THE CHURCH. 

1. Under the name of Church, I under- 
stand a body or collection of human per- 
sons, professing faith in Christ, gathered 
together in several places of the world, for 
the worship of the same God, and united into 
the same Corporation. — Bishop Pearson. 

2. The Church, being a supernatural 
society, doth differ from natural societies in 
this ; that the persons unto whom we asso- 
ciate ourselves, in the one are men, simply 
considered as men, but they to whom we 
be joined in the other, are God, angels and 
holy men. — Hooker. 

CHURCH-MUSIC. 
The end of Church-music is to relieve 
the weariness of a long attention, to make 



38 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the mind more cheerful and composed, and 
to endear the offices of religion. It should 
therefore imitate the perfume of the Jewish 
tabernacle, and have as little of the com- 
position of common use as possible. There 
must be no voluntary maggots, no military 
tattoos, no light and galliardizing notes ; 
nothing that may make the fancy trifling 
or raise an improper thought ; which would 
be to profane the service and to bring the 
play-house into the Church. Religious 
harmony must be moving but noble withal 
— grave, solemn and seraphic; fit for a 
martyr to play, and an angel to hear. It 
should be contrived so as to warm the best 
blood within us, and to take hold of the 
finest part of the affections ; to transport 
us with the Beauty of Holiness, to raise 
us above the satisfactions of life, and make 
us ambitious of the glories of Heaven. And, 
without doubt, if the morals of the choir 
were suitable to the design of the music, it 
were no more than requisite. To come 
reeling from a tavern, or a worse place, into 
a Church, is a monstrous incongruity. Such 
irregular people are much fitter for the ex- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 39 

ercises of penance than of exultation. The 
use of them dissevers the interests of Re- 
ligion ; and in effect, is little better than 
singing the praises of God through the 
organ of the Devil. — Jeremy Collier. 

CHURCH AND STATE. 
Some men there are, the pests of society 
I think them, who pretend a great regard 
for religion in general, but who take every 
opportunity of declaiming publicly against 
that system of Religion, or at least against 
that Church-establishment, which is re- 
ceived in Britain. Just so them, of whom 
I have been speaking, affect a great regard 
to liberty in general ; but they dislike so 
much the system of liberty established in 
Britain, that they are incessant in their en- 
deavors to puzzle the plainest thing in the 
world, and to refine and distinguish away 
the life and strength of our constitution, in 
favor of the little, present, momentary 
turns, which they are retained to serve. 
What now would be the consequence, if 
all these endeavors should succeed ? I am 
persuaded that the great philosophers, di- 



40 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

vines, lawyers, and politicians, who exert 
them, have not yet prepared and agreed 
upon the plans of a new religion and of 
new constitutions in Church and State. 
We should find ourselves, therefore, with- 
out any form of religion or civil government. 
The first set of these missionaries would 
take off all restraints of religion from the 
governed ; and the latter set would remove, 
or render ineffectual, all the limitations and 
controls which liberty hath prescribed to 
those who govern ; and disjoint the whole 
frame of our constitution. Entire dissolu- 
tion of manners, confusion, anarchy, or, 
perhaps, absolute monarchy, would follow : 
for it is possible, nay probable, that in such 
a state as this, and amidst such a rout of 
lawless savages, men would choose this 
government, absurd as it is, rather than 
have no government at all. — Lord Boling- 
broke. 

CHURCH UNION. 
The Church, being a society, hath the 
self-same original grounds, which other so- 
cieties have ; the natural inclination which 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 41 

all men have unto social life, and consent 
to some certain bond of association, which 
bond is the law that appointeth what kind 
of order they shall be associated in. — 
Hooker. 

CLASSIC GROUND. 
1. To tread on classic ground is a pleasing 
source of gratification to the Traveller. He 
has it in his power to adopt the most direct 
method of illustrating the allusions to man- 
ners, customs and places, found in his 
favorite authors, and to supply the defects 
of commentators and critics by his actual 
observations. He who relishes the beau- 
ties of a Virgil or a Horace, will be eager 
to visit the spots, either marked by their 
footsteps, or immortalized by their poems. 
What delight will he experience, when he 
sees the Po flowing through the meadows of 
Mantua, and afterwards rushing by various 
streams into the gulf of Venice ; or, when 
he traverses the shores of Baiae and wan- 
ders amid the groves of Umbria ! The Anio 
dashing its foaming surges through the 
craggy channels of the rocks and hills of 



42 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

Tivoli, interspersed with orchards, olive- 
groves and corn-fields, recall Horace and 
Tibullus to his remembrance. These scenes 
ever endeared to learning and taste, inspired 
many of the lively and festive Odes of the 
one, and of the tender and pensive "Elegies 
of the other. — Henry Kett. 

2. At last we came to Icolmkill. — We 
were now treading that illustrious island, 
which was once the luminary of the Cale- 
donian regions, where savage clans and 
roving barbarians derived the benefits of 
knowledge and the blessings of religion. 
To abstract the mind from all local emotion 
would be impossible, if it were endeavored ; 
and would be foolish, if it were possible. 
Whatever withdraws us from the power of 
our senses, whatever makes the past, the 
distant or the future, predominate over the 
present, advances us to the dignity of 
thinking beings. Par from me and from 
my friends be such rigid philosophy, as 
may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, 
over any ground which has been dignified 
by wisdom, bravery or virtue. That man 
is little to be envied whose patriotism 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 43 

would not gain force upon the plain of 
Marathon, or whose piety would not grow 
warmer among the ruins of Iona. — Dr. 
Johnson. 



CLASSIC "WRITERS. 
1. If the student hath formed both his 
sentiments and his style by the perusal and 
imitation of the purest classical writers, 
among whom the historians and orators will 
best deserve his regard ; if he can reason 
with precision, and can separate argument 
from fallacy, the clear simple rules of pure 
unsophisticated logic ; if he can fix his 
attention and steadily pursue Truth through 
any of the most intricate deductions by 
the use of mathematical demonstration ; if 
he has enlarged his conceptions of nature 
and art, by a view of the several branches 
of genuine experimental philosophy ; if 
he has impressed on his mind the sound 
maxims of the Law of Nature, the best 
and most authentic foundation of human 
laws ; if, lastly, he has contemplated those 
maxims, reduced to a practical system in 
the laws of Imperial Rome ; if he has done 



44 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

this, or any part of it, a student thus quali- 
fied may enter upon his pursuits with 
incredible advantage and reputation. And 
if, at the conclusion or during the acqui- 
sition of these accomplishments, he will 
afford himself in the University a year or 
two's further leisure, to lay the foundation 
of his future labors in a solid scientific 
method, without thirsting too early to at- 
tend that practice which it is impossible he 
can rightly comprehend, he will afterwards 
proceed with the greatest ease, and will 
unfold the most intricate points with an 
intuitive rapidity and clearness. — Sir 
William Blackstone. 

THE CLERGY. 
1. All Christians ought to know that St. 
Peter gave the title of Clergy to all God's 
people, till Pope Hyginus and the succeed- 
ing prelates took it from them, appropriating 
that name to themselves and their priests 
only; and condemning the rest of God's 
inheritance to an injurious and alienate 
condition of laity. — Milton on Church 
Government. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 45 

2. Of all classes that can read and write, 
the Clergy, in general, take the worst mea- 
sure of affairs. — Lord Clarendon. 

CLERICAL FLATTERY. 
Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes 
from a solemn character and stands before 
a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such 
commendation is a satire upon the author, 
makes the text look mercenary, and dis- 
ables the discourse from doing service. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

CLERICAL POLLUTIONS. 
Those ecclesiastics who violently affect 
rich or pompous Prelacies, pollute them- 
selves with worldly arts, growing covetous 
as Syrian merchants, ambitious as the Le- 
vantine princes, factious as the people, 
revengeful as jealousy, and proud as con- 
querors and usurpers. By these means 
beasts are brought into the Temple, and the 
Temple itself is exposed to sale, and the 
holy rites as well as the beasts of Sacrifice 
are made venal. — Jeremy Taylor. 



40 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



CLERICAL STUDIES. 

1. Literature, and sacred literature in 
particular, is requisite to a Clergyman, not 
only as it is necessary to the edifying dis- 
charge of his pastoral duties, but as it forms 
and shows the turn of his mind, influences 
and implies his habits of life, makes him 
happy at home, detains him from pursuits 
improper in kind or excessive in degree ; 
and keeps his mind in a due tone for every 
work of his ministry. In every view it is 
a vital part of his character. — Dr. Naple- 

TON. 

2. The imagined presence # of a wise 
and good man has been recommended as a 
convenient guard to private conduct. How 
would this appear to Socrates or Plato or 
Aristides ? The parochial minister may 
with equal advantage suppose himself under 
the ocular inspection of his omniscient 
Overseer, and anticipate with greater feel- 
ing his censure or his disapprobation. — Ibid. 

* See Examples. 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. 47 



CLERICAL WRITINGS. 
The Clergy are both ready and able to 
maintain the cause of Christianity, as their 
many excellent writings in defence of it 
sufficiently demonstrate. But as the gene- 
rality of mankind is more governed by 
prejudice than by reason, their writings are 
not so universally read or candidly received 
as they deserve ; because they are supposed 
to proceed, not from conscience and con- 
viction, but from interested views, and the 
common cause of their profession. A sup- 
position evidently as partial and injurious 
as that would be, which should impute the 
gallant behavior of our soldiers to the mean 
consideration of their pay and their hopes 
of preferment : exclusive of all the nobler 
motives of gentlemen, namely, the sense of 
honor, and love of country. — Gilbert 
West. . 

COMMERCE. 
1. In observing the advances of com- 
merce, we shall find that in its Jirst stages it 
supplies mutual necessities, prevents mutual 



48 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

wants, extends mutual knowledge, eradi- 
cates mutual prejudice, and spreads mutual 
humanity. In its middle and more advanced 
period, it provides conveniences, increases 
numbers, gives birth to arts and sciences, 
creates equal laws, diffuses general plenty 
and general happiness. If we view it in 
its third and highest stage, we shall see it 
change its nature and effects. It brings 
in superfluity and vast wealth, begets ava- 
rice, gross luxury or effeminate refinement 
among the higher ranks, together with 
general loss of principle. — Dr. John Brown. 

2. The sea-coast of Britain, from the 
figure, in some measure, of the Island, but 
chiefly from the inlets of the sea and the very 
irregular indented line which forms its shore, 
comprehends, allowing for these sinuosities, 
at least eight hundred marine leagues. In 
this respect, so beneficial to commerce, it 
is superior to France, and equal to Spain 
and Portugal, though Britain is not half the 
size of that noble peninsula which forms 
the latter two kingdoms. — Dr. Campbell. 

3. He that first discovered the use of the 
compass, did more for the supplying and 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. 49 

increase of useful commodities, than those 
who built workhouses. — Locke. 

4. Commerce supplies the wants of one 
country by importing the riches of another, 
and gives a value to superfluities which they 
could not otherwise obtain. It increases 
the revenue of a State, and preserves the in- 
dependence of a people. — Henry Kent. 

CONSCIENCE. 
1. There is no word more frequently in 
the mouths of men, than that of conscience ; 
and the meaning of it is in some measure 
generally understood. However, because 
it is a word extremely abused by many peo- 
ple, who apply other meanings to it, which 
God Almighty never intended, I shall ex- 
plain it in the clearest manner I am able. 
The word conscience properly signifies that 
knowledge which a man hath within him- 
self of his own thoughts and actions ; by 
comparing them with the law of God, his 
mind will either approve or condemn him, 
according as he hath done good or evil ; 
therefore this knowledge or conscience may 
properly be called both an accuser and a 
judge. So that whenever our conscience 

4 



50 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

accuseth us, we are certainly guilty : but 
we are not always innocent when it doth 
not accuse us ; for very often through the 
hardness of our hearts, or the fondness 
and favor we bear ourselves, or through 
ignorance or neglect, we do not suffer our 
conscience to take any cognizance of sev- 
eral sins we commit. — Swift. 

2. The testimony of a good conscience 
will make the comforts of Heaven descend 
upon man's weary head, like a refreshing 
dew or shower upon a parched land. It 
will give him lively earnests and secret 
anticipations of approaching joy ; it will 
bid his soul go out of the body undauntedly, 
and lift up his head with confidence before 
saints and angels. The comfort which it 
conveys is greater than the capacities of 
mortality can appreciate, mighty and un- 
speakable, and not to be understood till it 
is felt. — Dr. South. 

3. A good conscience is to the soul, 
what health is to the body; it preserves a 
constant ease and serenity within us, and 
more than countervails all the calamities 
and afflictions which can possibly befall us. 
— Addison. 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. 51 



COSMOPOLITY OF LITERATURE. 
A Khan of Tartary admired the art 
of Moliere, and discovered the TartufFe 
in the Crimea ; and had this ingenious 
Sovereign survived the translation which 
he ordered, the immortal labor of the comic 
satirist of France might have laid the foun- 
dations of good taste even among the 
Turks and the Tartars. We see the Italian 
Pignotti referring to the opinion of an 
English critic, Lord Bolingbroke. for deci- 
sive authority on the peculiar characteristics 
of the historian Guicciardini : the German 
Schlegel writes on our Shakspeare like a 
patriot ; and while the Italians admire the 
noble scenes which our Flaxman has drawn 
from their great Poet, they have rejected 
the feeble attempts of their native artists. 
Such is the wide and the perpetual influ- 
ence of this living intercourse of literary 
minds. — D'Israeli. 



COVETOUSNESS. 
1. Let never so much probability hang 
on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, 



52 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

and money on the other, it is easy to fore- 
see which will outweigh. — Locke. 

2. He that is envious or angry at a 
virtue that is not his own ; at the perfection 
or excellency of his neighbor, is covetous, 
not of the virtue, but of the reward and 
reputation : and then his intentions are pol- 
luted. — Jeremy Taylor. 

3. He that takes pains to serve the ends 
of covetousness, or ministers to another's 
lust, or keeps a shop of impurities or intem- 
perance, is idle in the worst sense. — Ibid. 

4. See the reward of covetousness ; it 
is cheap in its offers, momentary in its 
possession, unsatisfying in the fruition, 
uncertain in the stay, sudden in its depar- 
ture, horrid in the remembrance, and a 
ruin, a sad and miserable ruin is in the 
event. — Ibid. 

5. Covetousness debaseth a man's spirit, 
and sinketh it into the earth. — Archbishop 

TlLLOTSON. 

6. Covetousness is a most obliging lev- 
eller ; it mingles the great and the small 
with wonderful condescensions, and makes 
Lords and valets company for one another. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 53 

It will solicit in the meanest office and 
submit to any infamous disguise. It turns 
lions into jackalls, engages honor in the 
most scandalous intrigues, and make it un- 
derputter to cheats and sharpers. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

7. The covetous man has many tools to 
work with. If Deceit suits his purpose, 
he will use it to the best of his skill ; if 
Cruelty will save a penny, he will not hesi- 
tate to kill a poor debtor for the price of 
his skin. No turn, either in State or 
Religion, can hurt him ; he receives any 
impression and runs into any mould the 
times will give him. He is a Christian at 
Rome, a Heathen at Japan, and a Turk at 
Constantinople ; what you will without and 
nothing within. — Ibid. 

CRITICS. 
1. If you would succeed as a critic, you 
must deal with an author as you would 
with an enemy ; fire the beacon, draw 
down the posse on the first landing, and 
charge him while he is staggering on the 
beach. To give him time to feel his limbs 



54 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

and to march, may be of ill consequence : 
he may be joined by his friends and gain 
upon the country, and then it may be too 
late to stop his progress. — Jeremy Collier. 

2. Where an author has many beauties 
consistent with virtue, piety and truth, let 
not little critics exalt themselves and shower 
down their ill nature. — Watts. 

3. There is not a Greek or Latin critic, 
who has not shown, even in the style of his 
criticisms, that he was a master of all the 
eloquence and delicacy of his native tongue. 

CRITICISM. 

1. Criticism, as it was first instituted by 
Aristotle, was meant a standard of judging 
well. — Dr. Johnson. 

2. If ideas and words were distinctly 
weighed and duly considered, they would 
afford us another sort of logic and criticism, 
than we have been hitherto acquainted 
with. — Locke. 

3. Meanwhile Momus bent his flight to 
the region of a malignant deity, called 
Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a 
snowy mountain, where Momus found her 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 55 

extended in her den, upon the spoils of 
numberless volumes half devoured. At 
her right hand sat Ignorance, her father 
and husband, blind with age ; at her left 
Pride, her mother dressing her up in scraps 
of paper herself had torn. There was 
Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hood- 
winked and head-strong, yet giddy and 
perpetually turning. About her played her 
children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness 
and Yanity, Positiveness, Pedantry and 
Ill-manners. The goddess herself had 
claws like a cat, her head and ears resem- 
bled those of an ass ; her teeth had fallen 
out before ; her eyes turned inward, as if 
she looked only upon herself, and her diet 
was the overflowing of her own gall. 

Up rose the Goddess and said, it is I 
who give wisdom to infants and idiots ; 
by me children grow wiser than their 
parents ; by me beaux become politicians, 
and school-boys judges of philosophy. By 
me sophisters debate and conclude upon 
the depths of knowledge ; and coffee-house 
wits, instinct by me, can correct an author's 
style, and display his minutest errors, with- 



56 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

out understanding a syllable of his matter 
or of his language. By me striplings spend 
their judgment as they do their estate, be- 
fore it comes into their hands. It is I who 
have deposed wit and knowledge from their 
empire over Poetry, and advanced myself 
in their stead. But come my aged parents 
and you my children hear, and thou my 
beauteous sister ; let us ascend my chariot, 
and haste to assist our devout votaries, who 
are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as 
I perceive by that grateful smell which 
reaches my nostrils. — Swift. 

4. Listen to the confession of an illus- 
trious sinner ; the Coryphaeus of the amus- 
ing and new found art, or artifice, of 
modern criticism. In the character of 
Burns, the Edinburgh Reviewer, with his 
peculiar felicity of manner, attacked the 
character of the man of genius ; but when 
Mr. Campbell vindicated his immortal bro- 
ther with all the inspiration of the family 
feeling, our critic, who is one of those 
great artists who acquire at length the ut- 
most indifference even for their own works, 
generously avowed, that, "a certain tone 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 57 

of exaggeration is incidental we fear to the 
sort of writing in which we are engaged. 
Reckoning a little too much on the dul- 
lness of our readers, we are often led to 
overstate our sentiments; when a little 
controversial warmth is added to a little 
love of effect, an excess of coloring steals 
over the canvas, which ultimately offends 
no eye so much as our own." But what 
if this love of effect in the critic has been 
too often obtained at the entire cost of the 
literary characters, the fruits of whose stu- 
dious days at this moment lie withering in 
oblivion, or whose genius the critic has 
deterred from pursuing the career it had 
opened for itself! To have silenced the 
learned, and to have terrified the modest, 
is the barbarous triumph of a Hun or a 
Vandal ; and the vaunted freedom of the 
literary republic departed from us, when the 
vacillating public blindly consecrated the 
edicts of the demagogues of literature, 
whoever they may be. — D' Israeli. 

DEATH. 
1. It is impossible that any thing, so 



58 a thought-book; 

natural, so necessary and so universal as 
Death, should ever have been designed by 
Providence as an evil to mankind. — Swift. 

2. The more we sink into the infirmi- 
ties of age, the nearer we are to immortal 
youth. All people are young in the other 
world. That state is an eternal Spring, 
ever fresh and flourishing. Now to pass 
from midnight into noon on the sudden ; 
to be decrepid one minute, and all spirit 
and activity the next, must be a desirable 
change. To call this dying, is an abuse 
of language. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. The sublimity* of wisdom is to do 
those things living, which are to be desired 
when dying. For the death of the Right- 
eous is like the descending of ripe and 
wholesome fruits from a pleasant and florid 
tree. Our senses entire, our limbs unbroken, 
without horrid tortures ; after provision 
made for our children, with a blessing en- 
tailed upon posterity, in the presence of 
our friends, our dearest relative closing our 

* Hie est apex summse sapientise, ea viventem facere, 
qua? morienti essent appetenda. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 59 

eyes and binding our feet, leaving a good 
name behind us. — Jeremy Taylor. 

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 
Having thus spoken, he arose and went 
into an inner room to wash himself ; Crito 
following him, enjoined us to stay till his 
return. We therefore waited, discoursing 
among ourselves of the things that had been 
commemorated by him, and conferring our 
judgments concerning them. And we fre- 
quently spoke of the calamity that seemed 
to impend over us by his death ; conclud- 
ing it would certainly come to pass, that as 
sons deprived of their father, so should we 
disconsolately spend the remainder of our 
life. After he had been washed, and his 
children had been brought to him, (for he 
had two sons very young, and a third al- 
most a youth) and his wives also were 
come ; he spake to them before Crito, and 
gave them his last commands : so he gave 
orders to his wives and children to retire. 
Then he came back to us. By this time 
the day had declined almost to the setting 
of the sun ; for he had staid long in the 



CO A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

room where he washed himself. Which 
done, he returned and sate to repose him- 
self, not speaking much after that. Then 
came the Minister of the Eleven, the exe- 
cutioner ; and addressing himself to him, 
said, I do not believe, Socrates, that I shall 
reprehend that in you, which I am wont to 
reprehend in others ; that they are angry 
with me, and curse me, when, by com- 
mand of the magistrates, (who I am by my 
office bound to obey) I come and give no- 
tice to them, that they must drink the 
poison. But I know you to be at all times, 
and chiefly at this, a man both generous, 
and most mild and civil ; the best of all 
men that ever came into this place ; so that 
I am assured you will not feel displeased 
with me, but (you know the authors) with 
them rather. Now therefore, for you know 
what message I come to bring, farewell ; 
and endeavor to suffer as patiently and as 
calmly as you can, that which cannot be 
avoided ; then breaking forth into tears he 
departed: and Socrates, converting his eyes 
upon him said, and farewell thou too ; we 
will perform all things. Then turning to 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 61 

us again ? how civil is this man, saith he, 
all this time of my imprisonment, he came 
to me willingly, and sometimes talked with 
me respectfully, and hath been the best of 
all that belong to the prison ; and now how 
generously doth he weep for me! But, 
Crito, let us spare him, and let some other 
bring hither the deadly draught, if it be 
already bruised ; if not, let him bruise it. 
Then said Crito, I think the sun shines 
upon the tops of the mountains, and is not 
yet quite* down; and/I have seen some 
delay the drinking of the poison much 
longer. Nay more, after notice had been 
given them that they ought to despatch, 
they have supped and drank largely too, 
and talked a good while with their friends. 
Be not then so hasty ; you have yet time 
enough. Those men of whom you speak, 
Crito, saith he, did well ; for they thought 
they gained so much more of life ; but I 
will not follow their example. For I con- 
ceive I shall gain nothing in deferring my 



# By the Athenian law, no man was to be put to death 
until after sunset, lest the sun, for which they had a 
singular veneration, should be displeased at the sight. 



62 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

draught, till it be later in the night ; unless 
it be to expose myself to be derided, for not 
being desirous, out of too great a love of 
life, to prolong the short remainder of it. 
But well, get the poison prepared quickly, 
and do nothing else till that be despatched. 
Crito hearing this, beckoned to a boy that 
was present ; and the boy going forth and 
employing himself a while in bruising the 
poison, returned with him who was to give 
it, and who brought it ready bruised in a 
cup : upon whom Socrates casting his eyes, 
said, be it so, good man, tell me (for thou 
art well skilled in such matters) what is to 
be done ? Nothing, said he, but after you 
have drank, to walk until a heaviness comes 
upon your legs and thighs, and then to sit ; 
and this you shall do. And with that he 
held forth the cup to Socrates, which he 
readily receiving, and being perfectly sedate, 
O Echecrates, without trembling, without 
change either in the color or air of his face, 
but with the same aspect and countenance, 
intent and stern (as was usual to him) look- 
ing upon the man : what sayest thou, saith 
he, may not a man offer some of this liquor 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 63 

in sacrifice ? We have bruised but so 
much, Socrates, saith he, as we thought 
would be sufficient. I understand you, 
saith he ; but yet it is both lawful and our 
duty to pray to the gods that our transmi- 
gration from hence to them may be happy 
and fortunate. Having spoke those words, 
and remained silent, for a minute or two, 
he easily and expeditely drank all that was 
in the cup. Then many of us endeavored 
what we could to contain our tears, but 
when be beheld him drinking the poison, 
and immediately after, no man was able 
longer to refrain from weeping : and while 
I put force upon myself to suppress my 
tears, they flowed down my cheeks drop 
after drop. So covering my face, I wept 
in secret, deploring not his, but my own 
hard fortune, in the loss of so great a friend 
and so near a kinsman. But Crito, no 
longer being able to contend with his grief, 
and to forbid his tears, rose up before me. 
And Apollodorus first breaking out into 
showers of tears, and then into cries, howl- 
ings and lamentations, left no man from 
whom he extorted not tears in abundance : 



64 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

Socrates himself only excepted : — who 
said, what do ye my friends ? truly I sent 
away the women for no other reason, but 
lest they should in this kind offend. For I 
have heard, that we ought to die with good 
men's gratulation : but recompose your- 
selves and resume your courage and resolu- 
tion. Hearing this, we blushed with 
shame, and suppressed our tears. But 
when he had walked awhile, and told us 
that his thighs were grown heavy and stu- 
pid; he lay down upon his back: for so 
he who had given him the poison had di- 
rected him to do. Who, a little time after, 
returns, and feeling him, looked upon his 
legs and feet : then pinching his foot vehe- 
mently, he asked him if he felt it ? And 
when he said no, he again pinched his 
legs ; and turning to us, told us, that now 
Socrates was stiff with cold ; and touching 
him, said he would die so soon as the poi- 
son came up to his heart ; for the parts 
about his heart were already grown stiff. 
Then Socrates, putting aside the garment 
wherewith he was covered : we owe, saith 
he, a cock to iEsculapius : but do ye pay 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 65 

him. and neglect not to do it. And these 
were his last words. It shall be done, saith 
Crito ; bat see if you have any other com- 
mand for us. To which he gave no an- 
swer : but soon after fainting he moved 
himself often, as if suffering convulsions. 
Then the servant uncovered him : and his 
eyes stood wide open ; which Crito perceiv- 
ing he closed both his mouth and his eyes. 
This, Echechrates, was the end of our friend 
and familiar, a man, as we in truth affirm, 
of all whom we have by use and experience 
known, the wisest and most just. # — Pla- 
to's Plicedo. Old translation. 

# On the subject of the importance of the closing 
scene, or last act of life, upon Eparninondas being 
asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates or himself, deserved 
most to be esteemed? replied, "You must first see us 
die, before that question can be answered.-' And 
Erasmus, after quoting a passage of the last discourse 
of Socrates to his friends, a little before drinking the 
fatal draught, when he said, " whether or no, God will 
approve of my actions, I know not ; but this I am sure 
of, that I have at all times made it my endeavor to 
please Him, and I have a good hope that this my 
endeavor will please Him ; " was so much transported 
with these words of the divine philosopher, that he 
could scarcely forbear looking upon, him as a saint, and 
desiring his intercession, saying, " "When I reflect on 
5 



66 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



DEMOCRACY. 
Lycurgus being asked, why he, who in 
other respects appeared to be so zealous for 
the equal rights of men, did not make his 
Government democratical rather than oli- 
garchical. " Go you," replied the legislator, 
"and try a Democracy in your own house." 
— Plutarch. 

DEPENDENCE. 

1. In an arch each single stone, which, if 
severed from the rest, would be perhaps 
defenceless, is sufficiently secured by the 
solidity and entireness of the whole fabric 
of which it is a part. — The Hon. Robert 
Boyle. 

2. Dependence goes somewhat against 
the grain of a generous mind ; and it is no 
wonder that it should do so, considering the 
unreasonable advantage which is often taken 
of the inequality of fortune. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

such a speech, pronounced by such a person, I can 
scarcely forbear crying out, Oh ! holy Socrates, pray 
for us." — Ed. 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. 67 



DESCRIPTION v. DEFINITION. 

The sort of definition which is made 
up of a mere collection of the most re- 
markable parts or properties, is called an 
imperfect definition, or a description. 
Whereas the definition is called perfect, 
when it is composed of the essential differ- 
ence, added to general nature or genus. — 
Dr. Isaac Watts. 

DESIRE. 
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds 
in himself upon the absence of any thing, 
whose present enjoyment carries the idea 
of delight with it. — Locke. 

DESPAIR. 

1. Despair is the thought of the un- 
attainableness of any good ; it works 
differently in men's minds, sometimes pro- 
ducing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest 
and indolency. — Locke. 

2. Despair maks a despicable figure and 
is descended from a mean original. It is 
the offspring of fear, laziness, and impa- 



68 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

tience. It argues a defect of spirit and 
resolution, and sometimes of honesty too. 
After all. the exercise of this passion is so 
troublesome, that nothing but dint of evi- 
dence and demonstration should force it 
upon us. I would not despair unless I 
knew the irrevocable decree was past: saw 
my misfortune recorded in the Book of 
Fate, and signed and sealed by necessity. 
— Jeremy Collier. 

DESPISE NOTHING. 

1. Despise not any man, and do not 
spurn any thing. For there is no man that 
hath not his hour, nor is there any thing 
that hath not its place. — Rabbi Ben Azai. 

2. A certain man who was very much 
deformed saluted a Rabbi, saying, " Peace 
be unto thee." The Rabbi did not return 
the salutation ; but said, " Raca, how ugly 
this man is ! perhaps all thy townsmen are 
as deformed as thou art." The other re- 
plied, " I do not know ; but go thou and 
say to the Workman who made me, how 
ugly is this vessel which thou hast made." 
Upon which the Rabbi dismounted from 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 69 

his ass, knowing that he had sinned, and 
fell down on his face before the man he 
had despised, and said unto him, " Forgive 
me, I beseech thee." But the deformed 
man answered, " I cannot forgive thee 
until thou hast been to the Workman who 
formed me, and said, l How ugly is this 
vessel which thou hast made.' " — Talmud. 

DESPONDENCY. 

1. To believe a business impossible, is 
the way to make it so. How many feasi- 
ble projects have miscarried through de- 
spondency, and been strangled in the birth, 
by a cowardly imagination. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

2. There is no surer remedy for super- 
stitious and desponding weakness, than first 
to govern ourselves by the best improve- 
ment of that Reason which Providence has 
given us for a guide ; and then, when we 
have done our own parts, to commit all 
cheerfully for the rest, to the good pleasure 
of Heaven, with trust and resignation. — 
L'Estranoe. 

3. Some persons depress their own minds, 



70 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

despond at the first difficulty ; and conclude 
that making any progress in knowledge, 
farther than serves their ordinary business, 
is above their capacities. — Locke. 

DETRACTION. 

1. Doth a man reproach thee for being 
proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, 
ignorant or detractive ? consider with thy- 
self whether his reproaches are true. If 
they are not, consider that thou art not the 
person whom he reproaches, but that he 
reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps 
loves what thou really art, although he 
hates what thou appearest to be. If his 
reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, 
ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thy- 
self another turn, become mild, affable and 
obliging, and his reproaches of thee natu- 
rally cease. His reproaches may indeed 
continue, but thou art no longer the person 
he reproaches. — Epictetus. 

2. If Detraction could invite us, discre- 
tion surely would contain us from any de- 
rogatory intention. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

3. If Detraction were a new thing to me, 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 71 

I might not be displeased with the suppres- 
sion of the first libel that should abuse me : 
but since there are enough of them to make 
a small library, I am secretly pleased to see 
the number increased, and take a delight 
in raising of the stones that envy hath cast 
at me without doing me any harm. — De 
Balzac. 

DEVISERS. 
The Devisers of useful inventions, the 
authors of wholesome laws, as were the 
Philosophers of ancient times, were hon- 
ored as the Fathers and Prophets of their 
country. — Grew. 

DIALECTICS. 
Those dialectical subtleties, that the 
schoolmen employ, more declare the wit 
of him that useth them, than increase the 
knowledge of sober lovers of Truth. — 
The Hon. Robert Boyle. 

DISCRETION. 
1. There is no talent so useful towards 
rising in the world, or which puts men more 



72 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



out of the reach of fortune, than discretion, 
a species of lower prudence. — Swift. 

2. Without discretion, people may be 
overlaid with unreasonable affection, and 
choked with too much nourishment. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

DISCUSSION. 
Truth cannot be found without some 
labor and intention of the mind, and the 
thoughts dwelling a considerable time upon 
the survey and discussion of each particu- 
lar. — Dr. South. 

DISPUTATION. 
Consider what the learning of disputa- 
tion is, and how they are employed for the 
advantage of themselves or others, whose 
business is only the vain ostentation of 
sounds. — Locke. 

DISSIMULATION. 
Dissimulation is but a faint kind of poli- 
cy ; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong 
heart, to know when to tell the truth and 
to do it. — Lord Bacon. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



THE DRAMA. 

1. By the dramatic art could the men of 
former times, as the living can now, learn 
the manifold changes of fortune, the great 
diversities of character, and the events of 
life. A living historical image of all the 
virtues and of all the vices was thus brought 
before the ancients, that they might strive 
after the one and avoid the other. The 
dramatist was a teacher of all the virtues, 
inasmuch as he brought the images of the 
bad upon the theatre, not that men might 
form their minds on such a model, but that 
they might learn to shun them. He acted 
a feigned part, yet, as a teacher, he repre- 
sented the truth. — Eustathius, Archbishop 
of Thessalonica, 1190. 

2. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, 
the oeconomy of poems is better observed 
than in Terence, who thought the sole 
grace and virtue of their fable, the sticking 
in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in 
of jests. — Ben Jonson. 



74 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



DRYDEN ON HOMER AND CHAUCER. 
As Chaucer is the father of English 
Poetry, so I hold him in the same degree 
of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, 
or the Romans Virgil. 

DUELLING. 

1. To fight a duel, is a thing that all 
governments are bound to restrain with the 
highest severity. It is a consociation of 
many the worst acts that a person, ordinari- 
ly, can be guilty of. It is a want of charity, 
of justice, of humility, of trust in God's 
providence ; and is therefore pride and mur- 
der and injustice and infinite unreasonable- 
ness ; nothing of a Christian, nothing of 
excuse, nothing of honor in it, if God and 
wise men be admitted Judges of the List. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

2. Duelling is a most dishonorable prac- 
tice ; for when you have given the best 
proof of your sufficiency, and killed your 
man, you are seized by the hands of Jus- 
tice, treated like an assassin, and condemned 
to die with circumstances of ignominy. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 7o 

You are not indicted for acquitting your- 
selves like gentlemen, but for disturbing the 
peace and murdering the King's subjects. 
Now the law never loads a man with re- 
proaches, nor punishes him thus coarsely, 
for doing a handsome action. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

EDUCATION. 
Education and instruction are the means, 
the one by use. the other by precept, to 
make our natural faculties of reason, both 
the better and the sooner to judge rightly 
between truth and error, good and evil. — 
Dr. Hooker. 

EMULATION. 

1. Emulation is a handsome passion ; it 
is enterprising, but just withal. It keeps a 
man within the terms of honor, and makes 
the contest for glory just and generous. 
He strives to excel, but it is by raising 
himself, not by depressing others. — Jere- 
my Collier. 

2. Aristotle allows that some emula- 
tion may be good, and may be found in 



70 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

some good men ; yet envy he utterly con- 
demns, as wicked in itself, and only to be 
found in wicked minds. — Dr. Spratt. 

ENDS OF LANGUAGE. 
The ends of language are, first, to make 
known one man's thoughts to another ; 
secondly, to do it with ease and quickness ; 
and thirdly, thereby to convey the know- 
ledge of things. When language fails in 
any of these requisites, it is abused or defi- 
cient. He who in conversation uses the 
words of any language without distinct 
ideas in his mind to which he applies them, 
only utters sounds without signification, 
and is in reality no more advanced in know- 
ledge than he would be in learning, who 
had in his library the catalogues of books, 
without possessing the books themselves. 
He who has complex ideas, without particu- 
lar names for them, is embarrassed in his 
conversation for want of proper terms to 
communicate his complex ideas, which he 
is therefore forced to make known by a 
detail of the simple ones which compose 
them : and thus is frequently compelled to 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 77 

use twenty words to express what another 
more fluent and ready man signifies by one. 
He who annexes not constantly the same 
word to the same idea, but uses the same 
word sometimes in one and sometimes in 
another signification, ought to pass in con- 
versation for as fair and candid a man as 
he does in the market, who sells several 
things by the same name. — Locke. 

ENDS OF 31 AN. 
Were a man designed only, like a fly, 
to buzz about here for a time, sucking in the 

air and licking the dew, then soon to van- 
ish back into nothing, or to be transformed 
into worms : how sorry and despicable a 
thing were he ! And such, without Re- 
ligion, we should be. But it supplieth us 
with business of a most worthy nature and 
lofty importance : it setteth us upon doing 
things great and noble as can be : it en- 
gageth us to free our minds from all fond 
conceits, and to cleanse our hearts from all 
corrupt affections : to curb our brutish ap- 
petites, to tame our wild passions, to cor- 
rect our perverse inclinations, to conform 



78 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the dispositions of our soul, and the actions 
of our life to the eternal laws of righteous- 
ness and goodness. It putteth us upon the 
imitation of God, and aiming at the resem- 
blance of his perfections ; upon obtaining 
a friendship, and maintaining a correspon- 
dence with the High and Holy One ; upon 
fitting our minds for conversation and soci- 
ety with the wisest and purest spirits above ; 
upon providing for an immortal state ; upon 
the acquist of joy and glory everlasting. — 
Dr. Isaac Barrow. 

THE END OF PLEASURE. 
The end of pleasure is to support the 
offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of 
business, to reward a regular action, and to 
encourage the continuance. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

ENGLISH HISTORY. 
If an Englishman has no knowledge of 
those kings that filled the thrones of Per- 
sia ; if his memory is not embarrassed with 
that infinite number of Popes that ruled 
the Church, we are ready to excuse him. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 79 

Bat we shall hardly have the same indul- 
gence for him, if he be a stranger to the 
origin of Parliaments, to the customs of his 
country, and to the different lines of kings 
who have reigned in England. — Frederic 
the Great. 

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 

1. The English are the most free people 
that ever were upon earth. England, of 
all the nations in the world, is that which 
has known how to make the most (all at 
the same time) of those three great things, 
Religion, Commerce and Liberty. — De 
Montesquieu. 

2. The English Government, w r hich I 
have investigated on the spot, appears to 
me, in spite of its defects, a model for those 
nations that were desirous to change their 
governments. The work of M. De Lolme, 
which is an ingenious panegyric upon this 
excellent Constitution, was at that time in 
the hands only of the learned few. It 
ought to have been made known to my 
countrymen ; for to make it known was to 
make it beloved. — Brissot. 



80 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

3. Happy Constitution ! which the peo- 
ple who possess it did not suddenly attain ; 
it has cost them rivers of blood, but they 
have not purchased it too dear. — Vattel. 

ENVY. 

1. Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is 
made up of meanness and malice. It 
wishes the force of goodness restrained, 
and the measure of happiness abated. It 
laments over prosperity, and sickens at the 
sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit 
as well as good nature. — Jeremy Collier. 

2. Envy is of all others the most ungrati- 
fying and disconsolate passion. There is 
power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, 
and pelf even for covetousness ; but envy 
gets no reward but vexation. — Ibid. 

ESTEEM. 
Esteem generally rises upon the degrees 
of satisfaction ; and that which is best to 
us, we are apt to think is best in itself also. 
— Ibid. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 81 



EVANGELIC RELIGION. 
What evangelic religion is, is told in 
two words ; Faith and Charity, or, Belief 
and Practice. — Milton. 

EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE. 
He (the tempter) hath apples to cozen 
children and gold for men, the kingdoms 
of the world for the ambition of princes, 
and the vanities of the world for the intem- 
perate. He hath discourses and fair-spoken 
principles, to abuse the pretenders to Rea- 
son, and he hath common prejudices for 
the more vulgar understandings. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

EVIDENCE. 
There are books extant, which we must 
needs allow of as proper evidence ; even 
the mighty volumes of visible nature, and 
the everlasting tables of right reason. — Dr. 
Bentley. 

EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Having some leisure and more curi- 

6 



82 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

osity, I employed them both in resolving a 
question which seemed to me of some im- 
portance — whether Christianity was really 
an imposture, or whether it is what it pre- 
tends to be, a Revelation communicated to 
mankind by the interposition of supernatu- 
ral Power ? On a candid enquiry, I soon 
found that the first was an absolute impos- 
sibility ; and that its pretentions to the lat- 
ter were founded on the most solid grounds. 
In the further pursuit of my examination, 
I perceived at every step new lights arising, 
and some of the brightest from parts of it 
the most obscure, but productive of the 
clearest proofs ; because equally beyond 
the power of human artifice to invent and 
human reason to discover. These argu- 
ments, which have convinced me of the 
divine origin of this Religion, I have put 
together in as clear and concise a manner 
as I was able, thinking they might have 
the same effect upon others ; and being of 
opinion, that if there were a few more good 
Christians in the world, it would be bene- 
ficial to themselves, and by no means detri- 
mental to the public. — Soame Jenyns. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 83 

2. Christianity came into the world 
with the greatest simplicity of thought and 
language, as well as of life and manners ; 
holding forth nothing but piety, charity 
and humility, with the belief of the Mes- 
siah and his kingdom. — Sir William Tem- 
ple. 

3. Unreasonable it is to expect the 
same kind of proof and evidence, for every 
thing, which we have for some things. — 
Archbishop Tjllotson. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. Every man should propound to him- 
self the example of a wise and virtuous 
personage : as Cato, or Socrates, or Brutus ; 
and by a fiction of imagination, to suppose 
him present as a witness, and really to take 
his life as the direction of all our actions. — 
Seneca. 

2. Example is a motive of very prevail- 
ing force on the actions of men. — Rogers. 

3. It is a thing to be wished, that every 
one would study the life of some great man 
distinguished by employments, to which 
he may be destined by Providence. — Du 
Fresnoy. 



84 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

EXCELLENCE. 
Excellence is never granted to man, 
but as the reward of labor. It argues in- 
deed no small strength of mind to persevere 
in habits of industry, without the pleasure 
of perceiving those advances, which, like 
the hand of a clock, whilst they make 
hourly approaches to their point, yet pro- 
ceed so slowly as to escape observation. — 
Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

EXCESS. 

1. Goodness answers to the theological 
virtue Charity, and admits no excess, but 
error. The desire of power in excess, 
caused the Angels to fall ; the desire of 
knowledge in excess, caused man to fall ; 
but in Charity there is no excess, neither 
can Angel or man come in danger by it. — 
Lord Bacon. 

2. There will be need of temperance in 
diet ; for the body, once heavy with excess 
and surfeits, hangs plummets on all the no- 
bler parts. — Dr. Donne. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 85 

EYE OF A PAINTER. 
It is true that other people may see as 
well as a Painter, but not with such eyes. 
A man is taught to see as well as to dance ; 
and the beauties of nature open themselves 
to our sight by little and little, after a long 
practice in the art of seeing. A judicious 
well instructed eye sees a wonderful beauty 
in the shapes and colors of the commonest 
things, and what are comparatively incon- 
siderable. — Jonathan Richardson. 

FAITH. 

1. Faith is an entire dependence upon 
the truth, the power, the justice and the 
mercy of God; which dependence will 
certainly incline us to obey him in all 
things. — Swift. 

2. True virtue being united to the 
Heavenly grace of Faith, makes up the 
highest human perfection. — Milton. 

3. If God continually revealed himself 
to men, Faith could have no value, as we 
could not help believing ; and if He never 
revealed himself, there could hardly be such 
a thing as faith. — Pascal. 



86 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



FALSE CONCLUSIONS. 
From fallacious foundations and misap- 
prehended mediums, men erect conclusions 
no way inferable from the premises. — Sir 
Thomas Browne. 

FARCE. 
A farce is that in Poetry, which grotesque 
[caricature) is in Painting. The persons 
and actions of a Farce are all unnatural, 
and the manners false ; that is, inconsistent 
with the characters of mankind ; and gro- 
tesque painting is the just resemblance of 
this. — Dryden. 

FATE. 
The forbearance of God allows demons 
still to afflict the virtuous, like the poisoned 
Socrates, and bestow prosperity on the 
vicious, like Epicurus and Sardanapalus. 
This must not be ascribed to Fate, as the 
Stoics do, for Fate would destroy volition ; 
but angels and men have Free-will, may do 
right or wrong, therefore the wrong-doer 
will be punished at last. The very Stoics 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 87 

inculcate moral precepts, which implies 
Free-will in the disciples. — Justin Martyr. 

FELICITY OF MAN. 
So conspicuous and refulgent a truth is 
that of God's being the author of Man's 
felicity, that the dispute is not so much the 
matter of the thing, as concerning the man- 
ner of it. — The Hon. Robert Boyle. 

FELLOWSHIP. 
God having designed man for a sociable 
creature, made him not only with an incli- 
nation and under the necessity to have fel- 
lowship with those of his own kind, but 
furnished him also with language, which 
was to be the great instrument and cementer 
of society. — Locke. 

FEMALE RHYMES. 
1. Double rhymes are so called, because 
in French, from which the term is taken, 
they end in e weak or feminine. These 
rhymes are female : 

Th' excess of heat is but a fable ; 
We know the torrid zone is now found habitable. 

Cowley. 



88 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. Female rhymes are in use with the 
Italians in every line, with the Spaniards 
promiscuously, and with the French alter- 
nately ; as appears from the Alarique, the 
Pucelle, or any of their later poems. — 
Dryden. 

FICKLENESS. 
Instability of temper ought to be checked 
when it disposes men to wander from one 
scheme to another ; since such a fickleness 
cannot but be attended with fatal conse- 
quences. — Addison. 

FICTION. 
Fiction is the essence of Poetry, as well 
as of painting : there is a resemblance in 
one, of human bodies, things and actions, 
which are not real ; and in the other of a 
true story by a fiction. — Dryden. 

THE FIRMAMENT. 

1. The Almighty whose hieroglyphical 

characters are the unnumbered stars, sun 

and moon, written on these large volumes 

of the firmament. — Sir Walter Raleigh. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 89 

2. What an immeasurable space is the 
Firmament, wherein a great number of 
stars are seen with our naked eye, and many 
more discovered with our glasses. — Der- 
ham's Astro-Theology. 

3. Let us cast our eyes up to the Firma- 
ment, where the rich handy-work of God 
presents itself to our sight, and ask our- 
selves some such questions as these. What 
power built over our heads this vast mag- 
nificent arch, and spread out the Heavens 
like a curtain ? Who garnished these Hea- 
vens with such a variety of shining objects, 
a thousand and ten thousand times ten 
thousand different stars, new suns, new 
moons, new worlds, in comparison with 
which, this earth of ours is but a point, all 
regular in their motions, and swimming in 
their liquid ether? Who painted the clouds 
with such a variety of colors, and in such 
diversity of shades and figures, as is not in 
the power of the finest pencil to emulate ? 
Who formed the sun of such a determinate 
size, and placed it at such a convenient 
distance, as not to annoy, but only to re- 
fresh us, and nourish the ground with its 



90 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

kindly warmth ? If it were larger, it would 
set the earth on fire ; if less, it would leave 
it frozen ; if it were nearer to us, we should 
be scorched to death ; if farther from us, we 
should not be able to live for want of heat. 
Who then hath made it so commodious a 
tabernacle, (I speak with the Scriptures, 
and according to the common notion) out 
of which it cometh forth, every morning, 
like a bridegroom out of his chamber, and 
rejoiceth as a giant to run his course ? For 
so many ages past it never failed rising at 
its appointed time, nor once missed sending 
out the dawn to proclaim its approach. 
But at whose voice does it arise, and by 
whose hand is it directed in its diurnal and 
annual course, to give us the blessed vicis- 
situdes of day and night, and the regular 
successions of different seasons ? That it 
should always proceed in the same straight 
path, and never once be known to step 
aside ; that it should turn at a certain de- 
terminate point, and not go forward in a 
space, where there is nothing to obstruct 
it ; that it should traverse the same path 
back again, in the same constant and regu- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 91 

lar pace, to bring on the seasons by gradual 
advances ; that the moon should supply the 
office of the sun, and appear, at set times, 
to illuminate the air, and give a vicarious 
light when its brother is gone to carry the 
day into the other hemisphere : that it 
should procure, or at least regulate the 
fluxes and refluxes of the sea, whereby the 
water is kept in constant motion, and so 
preserved from putrefaction, and accommo- 
dated to man's manifold conveniences, be- 
sides the business of fishing and the use of 
navigation. In a word, that the rest of the 
planets, and all the innumerable host of 
heavenly bodies should perform their courses 
and revolutions with so much certainty and 
exactness, as never once to fail, but, for 
almost these six thousand years, come con- 
stantly to the same period, in the hundredth 
part of a minute ; is a clear and incontes- 
table proof of a Divine Architect, and of 
that counsel and wisdom wherewith He 
rules and directs the universe. — Stack- 
house. 



92 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

FLATTERERS. 
Some praises proceed merely of flattery; 
and if he be an ordinary flatterer, he will 
have certain common attributes which may 
serve every man. If he be a cunning flat- 
terer, he will follow the arch-flatterer which 
is a man's self. But if he be an impudent 
flatterer, look wherein a man is conscious 
to himself, that he is most defective, and is 
most out of countenance in himself, that 
will the flatterer entitle him to, perforce. — 
Lord Bacon. 

FLATTERY. 

1. Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and 
leaves a very dangerous impression. It 
swells a man's imagination, entertains his 
vanity, and drives him to a doting upon 
his own person. — Jeremy Collier. 

2. When I tell him he hates flattery, 
He says he does ; being then most flatter'd. 
— Shakspeare. 

FLUENCY OF SPEECH. 
The common fluency of speech iu many 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 93 

men and most women, is owing to a scar- 
city of matter and a scarcity of words ; 
for whoever is a master of language, and 
hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in 
speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of 
both. — Swift. 

FOOD FOR THE MIND. 
The mind requires not, like an earthen 
vessel, to be kept full ; convenient food 
and aliment only, will inflame it with a 
desire of knowledge, and an ardent love of 
truth. — Plutarch. 

FORESIGHT. 
Difficulties and temptations will be 
more easily borne or avoided, if, with pru- 
dent forecast, we arm ourselves against 
them. — Rogers. 

FORMALITIES. 
1. Ceremonies are not to be omitted to 
strangers and persons of formal natures; 
but the exalting them above the mean, is 
not only tedious, but doth diminish the 
credit of him that speaks. — Lord Bacon. 



94 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. It is a ridiculous thing and fit for a 
satire, to persons of judgment, to see what 
shifts formalists have, and what prospec- 
tives to make superficies to seem a body- 
that hath depth and bulk. — Ibid. 

FORTITUDE. 

1. Fortitude is the guard and support 
of the other virtues ; and without courage 
a man will scarce keep steady to his duty, 
and fill up the character of a truly worthy 
man. — Locke. 

2. Fortitude implies a firmness and 
strength of mind, that enables us to do and 
suffer as we ought. It rises upon an oppo- 
sition, and, like a river, swells the higher 
for having its course stopped. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

FREE TRADE. 

All restrictions on Trade are naught ; 
and no company whatever, whether they 
trade in a joint-stock, or under regulations, 
can be for public good, except it may be 
easy for all or any of his Majesty's subjects 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 95 

to be admitted into them at any time for a 
very inconsiderable sum. — Sir J. Child. 

FREE-WILL. 
We have a power to suspend the prose- 
cution of this or that desire ; this seems to 
me the source of all liberty ; in this seems 
to consist that which is improperly called 
Free-will. — Locke. 

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 

1. He that has no friend and no enemy, 
is one of the vulgar, and without talents, 
power, or energy. — Lavater. 

2. A Friendship that makes the least 
noise, is very often the most useful ; for 
which reason I should prefer a prudent 
friend to a zealous one. — Addison. 

3. A man that is fit to make a friend of, 
must have conduct to manage the engage- 
ment, and resolution to maintain it. He 
must use freedom without roughness, and 
oblige without design. Cowardice will 
betray friendship, and covetousness will 
starve it. Folly will be nauseous, passion 
is apt to ruffle, and pride will fly out into 
contumely and neglect. — Jeremy Collier. 



96 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

1. Friendship is composed of a single 
soul, inhabiting two bodies. — Aristotle. 

2. Friendship improves happiness, and 
abates misery, by the doubling of our joy, 
and the dividing of our grief. — Cicero. 

3. There is nothing so agreeable to na- 
ture or so convenient to our affairs, whether 
in prosperity or adversity, as Friendship. — 
Ibid. 

4. Friendship is a strong and habitual 
inclination in two persons to promote the 
good and happiness of each other. — Addi- 
son. 

5. Friendship is one of those few things 
that are the better for wearing. Alphorisus 
the wise, king of Aragon, tells us that all 
the acquisitions and pursuits of men, ex- 
cepting four, were but baubles: — namely, 
old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old 
books to read, and old friends to converse 
with. — Jeremy Collier. 

6. A true Friend is distinguished in the 
crisis of hazard and necessity ; when the 
gallantry of his aid may show the worth of 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 97 

his soul and the loyalty of his heart. — 
Ennius. 

7. It has been a difficult question, whe- 
ther new friends are ever to be preferred to 
old ones ; as it is usual to esteem young 
horses above those worn with years and 
service. A doubt unworthy of a man, for 
we ought not to be satiated with Friend- 
ship as with other things. — Cicero. 

8. If thou wouldest get a Friend, prove 
him, and be not hasty to credit him : for 
some man is a friend for his own occasion, 
and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. 
Some friend is a companion at the table, 
but will not continue in the day of thy 
affliction. A faithful friend is a strong de- 
fence, and he that hath found such an one, 
hath found a treasure. Nothing doth coun- 
tervail a faithful friend, and his excellency 
is invaluable. A faithful friend is the medi- 
cine of life ; and they that fear the Lord 
shall find him. Forsake not an old friend, 
for the new is not comparable to him : a 
new friend is as new wine : when it is old 
thou shalt drink it with pleasure. — Jesus 
Ben Sirach. 

7 



98 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



GOD'S CREATURES. 

1. Were it not strange if God should 
have made such store of glorious creatures 
on earth, and leave them all to be consumed 
in secular vanity, allowing none but the 
baser sort to be employed in his own ser- 
vice. — Hooker. 

2. Whoever imagines that the wonder- 
ful order and incredible constancy of the 
heavenly bodies and their motions, whereon 
the preservation and welfare of all things 
depend, is not governed by an intelligent 
Being, is destitute of understanding. For 
shall we, when we see an artificial engine, 
a sphere or dial for instance, acknowledge 
at first sight, that it is the work of art and 
understanding ; and yet, when we behold 
the Heavens moved and whirled about 
with incredible velocity, constantly finish- 
ing their annual vicissitude, make any 
doubt, that these are the performances, not 
only of reason, but of a certain excellent 
and Divine reason. — Cicero. 

3. I wonder much at the boldness with 
which some persons endeavor to demon- 



I 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 99 

strate to the unbelieving, the existence of 
God. from the works of nature. I would 
not so much wonder at this attempt, if they 
addressed themselves to the believing ; for 
to them, who have a living faith in the 
heart, every thing that is, manifestly ap- 
pears as the work of the God whom they 
adore. But it is very different with those 
in whom this living light is extinct and 
sought to be revived — those destitute of 
faith and grace, who, while searching with 
all their light, all they see in nature, which 
might lead them to the knowledge of God, 
yet find only obscurity and darkness. To 
say to such that they have only to behold 
the least of the things which surround 
them, and they will find God revealed 
therein, as at once a proof of this great and 
important truth ; to point to the course of 
the moon or the planets, and profess thus 
to have accomplished its demonstration, is 
truly to afford them ground for believing 
that the evidences of our Religion are very 
weak, and I am assured from reason and 
experience, that nothing is more fitted to 
inspire them with contempt of those evi- 
dences. — Pascal. 



100 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

A GOOD MAN. 
He is a good man who grieves rather for 
him that injures him, than for his own suf- 
fering ; who prays for him that wrongs 
him, forgiving all his faults ; who sooner 
shows mercy than anger ; who offers vio- 
lence to his appetite, in all things endeavor- 
ing to subdue the flesh to the spirit. This 
is an excellent abbreviative of the whole 
duty of a Christian. — Jeremy Taylor. 

A GOOD NAME. 
There are three crowns; the crown of 
the law, the crown of the priesthood, and 
the crown of royalty : but the crown of a 
good name is superior to them all. — Tal- 
mud Ti\ Aboth. 

* 

GOODNESS. 

1. Goodness is generous and diffusive; 
it is largeness of mind, and sweetness of 
temper — balsam in the blood, and justice 
sublimated to a richer spirit. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

2. If for any thing he loved greatness, 



i 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 101 

it was because therein he might exercise 
his goodness. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

GOOD INTENTIONS. 

A sad principle, pregnant with sin, and 
fruitful in monsters, is a weak pretence, 
which unwary and credulous persons take 
as a ground for their confidence and incor- 
rigible pursuance of their courses ; that 
they have a good meaning, that they intend 
sometimes well, and sometimes not ill, and 
this shall be sufficient to sanctify their ac- 
tions, and to hallow their sin. And this is 
of worse malice, when Religion is the 
color for a war ; and the preservation of 
Faith made the warrant for destruction of 
Charity; and a zeal for God, made the false 
light to lead us to disobedience to man : 
and hatred of Idolatry is the hnissier of 
Sacrilege ; and the destruction of Supersti- 
tion, the introducer of Profaneness ; and 
Reformation made the color for a Schism : 
and Liberty of conscience the way to a 
bold and saucy Heresy : — for the end may 
indeed hallow an indifferent. action, but can 
never make straight a crooked and irregu- 
lar. — Jeremy Taylor. 



102 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

GOODNESS OF GOD. 
To consider God as the Governor of the 
world, in the light wherein we ordinarily 
behold him, is that which gives us the 
clearest conception we can entertain of 
him, which best answers all useful pur- 
poses ; and has this peculiar advantage, that 
it represents his Goodness, the attribute we 
are most interested with, in the fairest col- 
ors, as attentive to produce all the happi- 
ness possible for his creatures in the nature 
and constitution of things. This, when 
well inculcated, satisfies the minds of the 
Vulgar, and would satisfy the minds of the 
Speculative too, if they would abstain from 
idle questions concerning Creation, and for- 
bear to ask why things are not otherwise 
constituted, so that more happiness might 
have been produced, than is now possible. 
For if we survey so much of nature as lies 
within the reach of our observation and 
reason, we shall find there is a balance of 
Food, sufficient to content any reasonable 
man. — Search. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 103 

GOVERNMENT. 

1. There seems to be but two general 
kinds of Government in the world ; the 
one exercised according to the arbitrary 
commands and will of some single person ; 
and the other according to certain orders 
and laws introduced by agreement or cus- 
tom, and not to be changed without the 
consent of many. — Sir William Temple. 

2. Were every one permitted to carve 
out his own satisfaction, people would be 
apt to pursue the injury too close, and strike 
immediately on receiving the blow. They 
would often do themselves right at the first 
smart of an affront, when the provocation 
was fresh, and the anguish most stinging. 
Passing too eagerly upon a provocation, 
loses the guard, and lays open the body : 
calmness and leisure and deliberation do 
the business much better. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. When any one person or body of men, 
seize into their hands the power in the last 
resort, there is properly no longer a Govern- 
ment ; but what Aristotle and his followers 
call the abuse and corruption of one. — 
Swift. 



104 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



GRAY'S OPINION OF TACITUS. 
A man who could join the brilliancy of 
wit and concise sententiousness peculiar to 
that age,* with the truth and gravity of 
better times, and the deep reflection and 
good sense of the moderns, cannot choose 
but have something to strike yon. Yet 
what I admire in him, f above all this, is 
his detestation of tyranny and the high 
spirit of liberty, that every now and then 
breaks out, as it were, whether he would 
or no. I remember a sentence in his Agri- 
cola, that, concise as it is, I always admired, 
for saying so much in a little compass. He 
speaks of Domitian, who, upon seeing the 
last will of Agricola, wherein he had made 
him co-heir with his wife and daughter, 
" Satis constabat laetatem velut honore judi- 
cioque ; tarn caeca et corrupta mens assiduis 
adulationibus erat, ut nesciret a bono patre 
non scribi hseredem, nisi malum princi- 
pem." — Gray's Letters to West. 



# The Post- Augustan, 
f Tacitus. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 105 



GREATNESS. 

1. We can have no positive idea of any 
space or duration, which is not made up 
of, and commensurate to, repeated numbers 
of feet or yards, or days or years, and 
whereby we judge of the greatness of these 
sort of quantities. — Locke. 

2. In her, every thing was goodly and 
stately ; yet so that it might seem, that 
great-mindedness was but the ancient-bearer 
to the humbleness. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

3. A great man is affable in his conver- 
sation, generous in his temper, and immove- 
able in what he has maturely resolved upon. 
And as prosperity does not make him haugh- 
ty and imperious, so neither does adversity 
sink him into meanness and dejection : for 
if ever he shows more spirit than ordinary, 
it is when he is ill-used, and the world is 
frowning upon him. In short, he is equally 
removed from the extremes of servility and 
pride, and scorns either to trample on a 
worm, or cringe to an Emperor. — Jeremy 
Collier. 



108 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

HEREDITARY FAME. 

1. Great actions in which we had no 
share, cannot properly be any part of our 
commendation, especially if we want abili- 
ties to imitate them. It is a sign that a man 
is very poor when he has nothing of his 
own to appear in, but is forced to patch up 
his figure with the relics of the dead, and 
rifle tomb-stones and monuments for repu- 
tation. If a man could bequeath his virtues 
by will, and settle his sense and learning 
and resolutions upon his children, as cer- 
tainly as he can his lands, a brave ancestor 
would be a mighty privilege. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

2. The second natural division of power, 
is of such men, who have acquired large 
possessions, and, consequently, dependen- 
cies ; or descend from ancestors, who have 
left them great inheritances, together with 
an hereditary authority and title ; these per- 
sons usually unite in thoughts and opinions. 
Thus commences a great Council or Senate 
of Nobles, for the weighty affairs of the 
nation. — Swift. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 107 

3. In the founders of great families, 
titles or attributes of honor are generally- 
correspondent with the virtues of the per- 
son to whom they are applied ; but in their 
descendants they are too often the marks 
rather of grandeur than of merit. The 
stamp and denomination still continues, but 
the intrinsic value is frequently lost. — Ad- 
dison. 

HERESY. 
For my own part, I adhere to the Holy 
Scriptures alone — I follow no other heresy 
or sect. I had not even read any of the 
works of heretics so called, when the mis- 
takes of those who are reckoned for or- 
thodox, and their incautious handling of 
Scripture, first taught me to agree with 
their opponents whenever those opponents 
agreed with Scripture. If this be heresy, 
I agree with St. Paul,* " that after the way 
which they call heresy, so worship I the 
God of my fathers, believing all things 
which are written in the Law and the 
Prophets:" to which I add, whatever is 

* Acts xxiv. 14. 



108 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

written in the New Testament. Any other 
judges or chief interpreters of the Christian 
belief, together with all implicit faith, as it 
is called, I, in common with the whole 
Protestant Church, refuse to recognize. 
With good and religious reason, therefore, 
all Protestant Churches with one consent, 
and particularly the Church of England, 
in her thirty-nine articles, Article 6th, 19th, 
20th, 21st, and elsewhere, maintain these 
two points, as the main principles of true 
religion; that the rule of true religion is 
the Word of God only : and that this faith 
ought not to be an implicit faith, that is to 
believe, though as the Church believes, 
against or without express authority of 
Scripture. — Milton. 

HEROES. 
It were well if there were fewer Heroes ; 
for I scarcely ever heard of any, excepting 
Hercules, but did more mischief than good. 
These overgrown mortals commonly use 
their will with their right hand, and their 
reason with their left. Their pride is their 
title, and their power puts them in posses- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 109 

sion. Their pomp is furnished from rapine, 
and their scarlet is dyed with human blood. 
If wrecks and ruins and desolation of king- 
doms are marks of greatness, why do we 
not worship a tempest, and erect a statue 
to the plague ? A panegyric upon an 
earthquake is every jot as reasonable, as 
upon such conquests as these. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

HESIOD'S THEOGONY. 
The fables of Homer I value not — 
their beginning and end is woman. The 
theogony of Hesiod is no better. Saturn 
usurps the throne of his father, and Jupiter 
does the same by Saturn, and divides the 
empire of the universe with Neptune and 
Pluto. Pluto ravishes Proserpina, and Nep- 
tune Melanippa and the Nereids, and Jupi- 
ter Antiope, as a satyr, Danae as gold, 
Europa as a bull, and Leda as a fawn ; and 
Semele and Ganymede prove his impurity 
and wake the jealousy of his wife. Apollo 
the prophet was a liar, Minerva a virago, 
Bacchus effeminate, and Venus a courtezan. 
Read over to Jupiter the laws against dis- 



110 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

respect to parents, and against adultery ; to 
Minerva and Diana, those describing female 
duties to females, to Bacchus those for men. 
Look at Hercules and his labors and his 
loves, and his being shamefully * whipped 
by Lyde, and his death by his own hand. 
Vulcan's well-grounded jealousy, too, shows 
what these gods were. — Justin Martyr. 

HOLLOW CHURCH-PAPISTS. 
Hollow Church-papists are like the 
roots of nettles, which themselves sting 
not ; but bear all the stinging leaves. — 
Lord Bacon. 

HOLLOWNESS. 

People young and raw and soft-natured, 
think it an easy thing to gain love ; and 
reckon their own friendship a sure price of 
any man's : but when experience shall 
have shown them the hardness of most 
hearts, the hollowness of others, and the 
baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they 
will then find that a true friend is the gift 

# u y.(XTa yl.ovzcov Tvniopsrog" — HeS. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. Ill 

of God, and that He only who made hearts 
can unite them. — Dr. South. 

HOME. 
Something like Home, that is not home, 
is to be desired ; it is to be found in the 
house of a friend. — Sir William Temple. 

HOMER'S RELIGION. 

1. It gives us pleasure to trace in Homer 
the important doctrine of a supreme God, a 
Providence, a free agency in man, supposed 
to be consistent with fate or destiny ; a 
difference between moral good and evil, 
inferior gods or angels, some favorable to 
men, others malevolent ; and the immortal- 
ity of the soul. But it gives us pain to 
find these notions so miserably corrupted, 
that they must have had a very weak in- 
fluence to excite men to virtue, and to 
deter them from vice. — Dr. Jortin. 

2. The Grecian poets are censurable, 
because of their ridiculous Theogonies. 
Homer, for instance, ascribing the origin 
of the gods to water, making them arbiters 
of war ; Jupiter guilty of perjury, a help- 



112 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

less tool in the hands of Fate, unable to 
defend himself on a memorable occasion 
from outrage by the other gods, given to 
many impure loves. Mars, Venus, Juno 
and Pluto wounded by mortals, and the 
god of war once bound by giants for thir- 
teen months ; the gods, too, all at variance 
with each other. — Justin Martyr. 

HOMONYMA v. SYNONYMA. 

1. As words signifying the same thing 
are called synonymous, so equivocal words, 
or those which signify several things, are 
called homonymous or ambiguous ; and 
when persons use such ambiguous words 
with a design to deceive, it is called equi- 
vocation. When two or more words sig- 
nify the same thing, as wave and billow, 
mead and meadow, they are usually called 
synonymous words. — Dr. Isaac Watts. 

2. Wisdom and understanding are syno- 
nymous words ; they consist of two proposi- 
tions, which are not distinct in sense, but 
one and the same thing variously expressed. 
— Archbishop Tillotson. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 113 

HONOR. 

1. No man of honor, as that word is 
usually understood, did ever pretend, that 
his honor compelled him to be chaste or 
temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful 
to his country, to do good to mankind, to 
endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard 
his word, his promise, or his oath ; or if 
he hath any of these virtues, they were 
never learned in the catechism of honor; 
which contains but two precepts: the 
punctual payment of debts contracted at 
play, and the right understanding of the 
several degrees of an affront, in order to 
avenge it by the death of an adversary. — 
Swift. 

2. If I may defend my life with the 
sword, or with any thing which nature and 
the laws forbid not, why not also mine 
honor, which is as dear as my life '? For 
to be reputed a coward and one that will 
take affronts, is to be miserable and scorned, 
and to invite all insolent persons to do me 
injuries. May it not be permitted to fight 
for mine honor, and to wipe off the stains 



114 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

of my reputation? Honor is as dear as 
life, and sometimes dearer. To this I have 
many things to say ; for that which men 
in this question call honor, is nothing but 
a reputation among persons vain, unchris- 
tian, empty and ignorant, who count that 
the standard of honor, which is the instru- 
ment of reprobation, as if to be a Gentle- 
man were not to be a Christian. They 
that have built their reputation upon such 
societies must take new estimates of it, 
according to the wine, or fancy, or custom, 
or some great fighting person shall deter- 
mine it ; and whatsoever invites a quarrel 
is a rule of honor. But it is a sad consid- 
eration to remember, that it is accounted 
honor not to recede from any thing we have 
said or done ; it is honor not to take the 
lie, but it is not dishonorable to tell a lie, 
but to be told so, and not to kill him that 
says so. A mistress's favor, an idle dis- 
course, a jest, a jealousy, a health, a gaiety, 
any thing, must engage two lives in hazard, 
two souls in ruin, or else they are dishon- 
ored. — Jeremy Taylor. 

3. A man is an ill husband of his honor, 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 115 

that entereth into any action, the failing 
wherein may disgrace him more than the 
carrying of it through can honor him. — 
Lord Bacon. 

4. A man of honor will rather starve 
than be false to a solemn engagement. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

5. Numbers engage their lives and labors, 
some to heap together a little dirt that shall 
bury them in the end ; others to gain an 
honor, that at best can be celebrated but 
by an inconsiderable part of the world, and 
is envied and calumniated by more than it 
is truly given. — Archbishop Wake. 

6. Ti3iogenes would smile at a man's 
jest who ridiculed his Maker, and at the 
same time run a man through the body 
that spoke ill of his friend. He would 
scorn to betray a secret, that was intrusted 
to him, though the fate of his country de- 
pended upon the discovery of it. Timo- 
genes took away the life of a young man 
in a duel, for having spoken ill of a lady 
whom he chose to consider under his pro- 
tection, but afterwards abandoned to want 
and ignominy. To close his character, 



116 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

Timogenes, after having ruined several 
poor tradesmen's families, who had trusted 
him, sold his estate, on pretence of satisfy- 
ing his creditors ; but like a man of honor, 
disposed of all the money in paying off his 
play debts, or, to speak in his own language, 
his debts of honor. — Addison. 

HOPE. 
Hope is a vigorous principle ; it is fur- 
nished with light and heat to advise and 
execute. It sets the head and heart to 
work, and animates a man to do his utmost. 
And thus by perpetually pushing and assur- 
ance, it puts a difficulty out of countenance, 
and makes a seeming impossibility give 
way. — Jeremy Collier. 

HUMAN LIFE. 
Human life is like a game at dice ; where 
we ought not to throw for what is most 
commodious to us, but to be content with 
our casts, let them be never so unfortu- 
nate. — Plato. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 117 

HUMAN NATURE. 
1. The best and most excellent of the 
old lawgivers and philosophers among the 
Greeks, had an alloy of viciousness, and 
could not be exemplary all over. Some 
were noted for flatterers, as Plato and Aris- 
tippus ; some for incontinency, as Aristotle, 
Epicurus, Zeno, Theognis, Plato and Aris- 
tippus again ; and Socrates, whom their 
Oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most 
perfect man, yet was noted for extreme in- 
temperance, both in words and actions. 
And those Romans who were offered to 
them for # examples, although they were 
great in reputation, yet they had also great 
vices. Brutus dipped his hand in the blood 
of Ceesar his Prince, and father by love, 
endearments and adoption. And Cato was 
but a wise man all day, for at night he was 
used to drink too liberally ; and both he 
and Socrates did give their wives unto their 
friends. The Philosopher and the Censor 
were procurers of their wives' unchastity : 

# See Example. 



118 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

and yet these were the best among the 
Gentiles. — Jeremy Taylor. 

2. The writings of the Grecian poets 
are monuments of human passion and folly. 
Agamemnon, to redeem the worthless wife 
of his brother, carried off by a paltry shep- 
herd, consents that his own daughter should 
be put to death : quarrels with Achilles 
about another silly woman : while the great 
hero himself, the conqueror of Troy, in his 
turn becomes captive to Polyxena. — Jus- 
tin Martyr. 

3. What is this life but a circulation of 
little mean actions? We lie down and 
rise again, dress and undress, feed and grow 
hungry, work or play, and are weary ; and 
then we lie down again and the circle re- 
turns. — Bishop Burnett. 

HUMILITY. 
1. Humility is the Hall-mark of Wis- 
dom. Socrates, whom the Oracle, that is, 
the united opinion of the world in which 
he moved, pronounced to be the wisest 
man, was content with the title of a lover, 
rather than a professor of wisdom. — Jer- 
emy Collier. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 119 

2. Humility is truth, and Pride a lie ; 
the one glorifies God. the other dishonors 
him. Humility makes men to be like an- 
gels, Pride makes angels to become devils. 
Pride is folly, Humility is the temper of a 
holy spirit and excellent wisdom. Humility 
is the way to glory, Pride to ruin and con- 
fusion ; Humility makes saints on earth, 
Pride undoes them. Humility beatifies the 
Saints in Heaven, and the Elders lay down 
their crowns at the foot of the throne ; 
Pride disgraces a man among all the socie- 
ties on earth. God loves the one, and 
Satan solicits the cause of the other. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

3. He saw a cottage with a double coach- 

house, 
A cottage of gentility ; 
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin 
Is Pride that apes Humility. 

Coleridge. 

4. Humility does not make us either 
servile or insensible : it does not oblige us 
to be ridden at the pleasure of every cox- 
comb. We may show our dislike of an 
imperious humor, as well as of any other 



120 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

foolish action ; both for the benefit of others, 
and in vindication of our own rights. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

5. Let every one in his own station 
exercise himself in goodness, the true genu- 
flection is internal humility. Instead of 
many genuflections, be skilled only in man- 
ifold virtues. In God's sight this will not 
be of less value than genuflections ; for to 
proceed in a manner well pleasing to Him, 
is more in harmony with nature, and more 
suited to active life, than bowing the knee. 
— Archbishop Eustathtus. 

HYPOCRITES. 
1. I hold it better to appear as a drunk- 
ard than to pretend to fast ; I know not 
whether any one can so detest hypocrisy 
and hypocrites as I do ; more especially the 
assumed sanctity of the monks. Such 
persons are an untruth from head to foot. 
They deprive the gift of speech of all natu- 
ralness ; they falsify it. For the most part 
they are silent, but if they are pleased to 
speak, they lisp in an undertone, so that 
one can hardly tell whether they are speak- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 121 

ing or not. They make a show as if by 
the severities practised on themselves they 
had lost the power of utterance. What 
profit can be gained from the discourse of 
such persons, those know best who have 
heard it ; but I have no wish to be one of 
them. By such practices the ignorant man 
conceals his ignorance, for these people are 
altogether uncultivated ; they would fain 
be silent, or say little, that they might not 
reveal their poverty, for monks who are 
really wise, men of literature, men of vir- 
tue, inducted into all good culture, exercise 
their voice, and give dignity to language ; 
with their thoughtful discourses they make 
glad the cities of God ; with their whole 
appearance in harmony with nature, they 
represent the truth of Creation, as they 
strive by their actions to attain the image 
of God. — Archbishop Eustathtus. 

2. It is difficult to act a part long ; for 
where truth is not at the bottom, nature 
will always be endeavoring to return ; and 
will peep out and betray itself one time or 
other. — Dr. South. 



122 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



IDEAS. 

1. The idea of so much is positive and 
clear ; the idea of greater is also clear, but 
it is only a comparative idea. — Locke. 

2. We know that our thoughts, although 
so numerous, are all contained within our 
own breasts, and are invisible. But as the 
Supreme Being formed mankind for a state 
of society, he has provided us with organs 
proper for framing articulate sounds, and 
has given us also a capacity of using those 
sounds, as signs of all the thoughts we 
wish to communicate. From hence are 
derived words and languages. For any 
sound being once determined upon to stand 
as the sign of an Idea, custom by degrees 
establishes such a connection between them, 
that the appearance of the idea in the mind, 
always brings to our remembrance the 
name by which it is expressed ; and in like 
manner the hearing of the name never fails 
to excite the idea which it is intended to 
denote. — Henry Kett. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 123 

IDLENESS. 

1. Children generally hate to be idle; 
all the care then is, that their busy humor 
should be constantly employed in something 
of use to them. — Locke. 

2. Idleness is an inlet to disorder, and 
makes way for licentiousness. People that 
have nothing to do, are quickly tired of 
their own company. — Jeremy Collier. 

IDOLATRY. 
Idolatry is not only an accounting or 
worshipping that which is not God, but it 
is also a worshipping the true God, in a 
way unsuitable to His nature ; and particu- 
larly by the mediation of saints, images and 
corporeal resemblances. — Dr. South. 

IGNORANCE. 

1. Tell an Ignoramus, in place and 
power, that he has a wit and understanding 
above all the world, and he will readily 
admit the commendation. — Ibid. 

2. Our power is often confined because 
of our ignorance ; because we know not 



1*24 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

how to make the most of things, and put 
actives and passives together. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

IMAGINATION. 

1. Imagination has no limits, but when 
it is confined we find the shortness of the 
tether. — Swift. 

2. Some people are strangely overset by 
their imagination ; they lose their health 
with anxiety to preserve it, and kill them- 
selves through fear of dying. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

3. Imagination I understand to be, the 
representation of an individual thought. 
Imagination is of three kinds ; joined with 
belief of that which is to come ; joined 
with memory of that which is past ; and of 
things present. For I comprehend in this 
imagination feigned and at pleasure ; as if 
one should imagine such a man to be in 
the vestments of a Pope, or to have wings. 
— Lord Bacon. 

IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL. 
1. No man that owns the existence of 
an infinite Spirit, can doubt the possibility 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 125 

of a finite spirit ; that is, such a thing as is 
immaterial, and does not contain any prin- 
ciple of corruption. — Archbishop Tillot- 
son. 

2. When we know cogitation is the 
prime attribute of a Spirit, we infer its 
immateriality, and thence its immortality. — 
Tsaac Watts. 

3. Immateriality resembles the shell of 
the Building. Now there is no arguing 
from the outside to the inside. What if 
the case of a row of houses be the same, 
does this hinder the furniture from being 
different ? Angels are allowed to be spirits 
of a superior kind, notwithstanding the 
common privilege of incorporiety ; and for 
the same reason there may, for aught we 
know, be some original disputes between 
human souls. — JerexMY Collier. 

4. So natural is the knowledge of the 
soul's immortality, and of some ubi for its 
future reception, that we find some tract or 
other of it in most barbarous nations. — 
Dr. Heylin. 



126 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

INDEPENDENCE. 

1. Let fortune do her worst, whatever 
she makes us lose, as long as she never 
makes us lose our honesty and our inde- 
pendence. — Pope. 

2. He that has the business of life at his 
disposal, and has nobody to account to for 
his minutes, but God and himself, may, if 
he pleases, be happy without drudging for 
it. He needs not flatter the vain, nor be 
tired with the impertinent, nor stand to the 
courtesy of knavery and folly. He needs 
not dance after the caprice of a humorist, 
nor bear a part in the extravagance of 
another. His fate does not hang upon any 
man's face ; a smile will not transport him, 
nor a frown ruin him ; for his fortune is 
better fixed than to float upon the pleasure 
of the nice and changeable. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

INFANCY OF SCIENCE. 
In the beginning of the world, men had 
more corporeal force than afterwards. The 
reason of this allotment was probably to 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 127 

supply their defect of skill. In those early 
ages, they were more giants in their limbs 
than their understandings. In this infancy 
of science, extraordinary strength seems 
but necessary ; how otherwise, when in- 
vention was not come forward, when they 
wanted instruments, when they had little 
of mathematical direction, could they have 
cultivated the earth, built houses, or man- 
aged their carriages ? But when the mind 
grew large, the body grew less, and busi- 
ness went on as well as formerly. — Ibid. 

INNATE PRINCIPLES. 
Had they, who would persuade us that 
there are innate principles, considered sep- 
arately the parts out of which these propo- 
sitions are made, they would not, perhaps, 
have been so forward to believe they were 
innate. — Locke. 

INSTINCT, NATURAL AND ARGUMENTATIVE. 
Every creature hath something in it suffi- 
cient to propagate the kind, and to conserve 
the individuals from perishing in confusions 
and general disorders, which in beasts we 



128 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

call instinct) that is, an habitual or prime 
disposition to do certain things which are 
proportionable to the end whither it is de- 
signed. Man also, if he be not more im- 
perfect, must have the like, and because he 
knows and makes reflections upon his own 
acts, and understands the reason of it, that 
which in them is instinct, in him is natural 
reason, which is, a desire to preserve him- 
self and his own kind ; and differs from 
instinct, because he understands his instinct, 
and the reasonableness of it, and they do 
not. But because man being a higher 
thing even in the order of Creation, and 
designed to a more noble end, in his natu- 
ral capacity, his argumentative instinct is 
larger than the natural instinct of beasts. 
For he hath instincts in him in order to 
the conservation of society ; and therefore 
hath principles, that is, he hath natural de- 
sires to it for his own good ; and because 
he understands them, they are called Prin- 
ciples and Laws of Nature, but are no 
other than what I have now declared. For 
beasts do the same things we do, and have 
many of the same inclinations, which in 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 129 

us are the Laws of Nature, even all which 
we have in order to our common end. But 
that which is in beasts is Nature and im- 
pulsive force, in us must be duty and an 
inviting power. We must do the same 
things with an actual or habitual designa- 
tion of that end to which God designs 
beasts (supplying by his wisdom their want 
of understanding), and then what is mere 
nature in them, in us is natural reason. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 
These abilities, wheresoever they be 
found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely 
bestowed, but yet to some (though most 
abuse) in every nation; and are of power, 
beside the office of a pulpit, to inbreed and 
cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue 
and public civility, to allay the perturbations 
of the mind, and set the affections in right 
tune ; to celebrate in glorious and lofty 
hymns the throne and equipage of God's 
Almightiness, and what he works and what 
he suffers to be wrought with high Provi- 
dence in his Church; to sing victorious 
9 



130 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds 
and triumphs of just and pious nations 
doing valiantly through faith, against the 
enemies of Christ ; to deplore the general 
relapses of kingdoms and states from justice 
and God's true worship. Lastly, whatso- 
ever in Religion is holy and sublime, in 
virtue amiable and grave, whatsoever hath 
passion or admiration in all the changes of 
that which is called fortune from without, 
or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's 
thoughts from within ; all these things with 
a solid and treatable smoothness to point 
out and describe ; teaching over the whole 
book of sanctity and virtue, through all the 
instances of example, with such delight, to 
those especially of soft and delicious tem- 
per, who will not so much as look upon 
truth herself, unless they see her elegantly 
dressed, that whereas the paths of honesty 
and good life appear now rugged and diffi- 
cult, though they be indeed easy and pleas- 
ant, they will then appear to all men both 
easy and pleasant, although they be rugged 
and difficult indeed. — Milton. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 131 

INTELLECTUAL PLEASURES. 
Intellectual pleasures are of a nobler 
kind than any others. They belong to 
Beings of the highest order. They are 
the inclinations of heaven, and the enter- 
tainment of the Deity. — Ibid. 

INTEMPERANCE. 
Intemperance is a dangerous companion. 
It throws people off their guard, betrays 
them to a great many indecencies, to ruin- 
ous passions, to disadvantages in fortune : 
makes them discover secrets, drive foolish 
bargains, engage in play, and often to stag- 
ger from the tavern to the stews. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY. 
Dr. Johnson published his Dictionary ; 
and as the weight of truth and reason is 
irresistible, its authority has nearly fixed 
the external form of our language, and 
from its decisions few appeals have yet 
been made. Indeed so convenient is it to 
have one acknowledged standard to recur 



132 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

to — so much preferable in matters of this 
nature, is a trifling degree of irregularity to 
a continual change and a fruitless pursuit 
of unattainable perfection ; that it is earn- 
estly to be hoped no author will henceforth, 
on slight grounds, be tempted to innovate. 
Dr. Johnson is every where the declared 
enemy of unnecessary innovation : and the 
principles on which he founds his improve- 
ments, are the stable ones of etymology 
and analogy. The former science will not 
soon be more completely understood than 
it was by him ; and if in the latter a few 
steps may have been made beyond the 
limits of his observations, they have been 
gained only by the pursuit of minute re- 
searches, inconsistent with the greatness of 
his undertaking. — Archdeacon Nares. 

JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS. 
Johnson's lives of the poets merit great 
attention, and contain as many excellent 
principles of morality as of taste. They 
give useful hints to young men, as to the 
conduct of life ; and show them how fre- 
quently the powers of Genius and the rage 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 133 

of dissipation have been united in the favor- 
ites of the Muses. Whence they may in- 
fer that a sound judgment is more desirable 
than a fine imagination, and that abilities 
without prudence cannot secure them from 
disgrace and penury. — Henry Kett. 

KNAYERY. 

1. Most men rather brook their being 
reputed knaves, than, for their honesty, be 
accounted fools ; knave, in the mean time, 
passing for a name of credit. — Dr. South. 

2. The knavery of covetous men is 
as indisputable as an axiom ; and ought to 
be supposed as a postulatum in business. 
They are false by necessity of principle, 
and want nothing but an occasion to show 
it. Conscience and covetousness are never 
to be reconciled ; like fire and water they 
always destroy each other, according to the 
predominancy of the element. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

KNOWLEDGE. 
1. Knowledge, which is the highest 
degree of the speculative faculties, consists 



134 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

in the perception of the truth of affirmative 
or negative propositions. — Locke. 

2. Knowledge is the consequence of 
time, and multitude of days are fittest to 
teach wisdom. — Jeremy Collier. 

KNOWLEDGE NOT ALWAYS POWER. 

1. Though power is often the conse- 
quence of knowledge, yet it is far from 
being the same thing, as some have affirmed. 
A man may know how to fence, when his 
arms are cut off, yet the idea of the art 
will not enable him for the practice. He 
may know how to build a ship, when nei- 
ther wood nor iron is near him ; but the ' 
skill in his head and his hand will not do 
his business ; therefore knowledge alone is 
not power. — Ibid. 

2. Alexander the Great wrote to his 
tutor, Aristotle, complaining of that philoso- 
pher's publishing some of his writings that 
made known to the world those secrets in 
learning which he had communicated to 
him in private lectures ; concluding " that 
he had rather excelled the rest of mankind 
in knowledge than in power." — Addison. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 135 

3. Ignorance is the curse of God, 

Knowledge the wing with which we 
fly to Heaven. : — Shakspeare. 

LAW. 

1. Of Law there can be no less acknow- 
ledged, than that her seat is the bosom of 
God, her voice the harmony of the world, 
all things in heaven and earth do her ho- 
mage, the very least as feeling her care, 
and the greatest as not exempted from her 
power, both angels and men and creatures 
of what condition soever, though each in 
different sort and manner, yet all with uni- 
form consent, admiring her as the mother 
of their peace and joy. — Hooker. 

2. Laws are like spiders' webbs, that 
will catch flies, but not wasps and hornets. 
— Anacharsis. 

LAZINESS. 
1. Watch him at play, when following 
his own inclinations ; and see whether he 
be stirring and active, or whether he lazily 
and listlessly dreams away his time. — 
Locke. 



136 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. That instance of fraud and laziness, 
the unjust steward, who pleaded that he 
could neither dig nor beg, would quickly 
have been brought to dig and to beg too, 
rather than starve. — Dr. South. 

3. Wicked condemned men will ever 
live like rogues, and not fall to work, but 
be lazy and spend victuals. — Lord Bacon. 

LEADERS. 
The understandings of a Senate are 
enslaved by three or four leaders, set to get 
or keep employments. — Swift. 

LEARNING. 

1. The end of learning is to repair the 
ruins of our first parents, by regaining to 
know God aright, and out of that knowl- 
edge to love him, to imitate him, to be like 
him, as we may the nearest, by possessing 
our souls of true virtue, which being united 
to the heavenly grace of Faith, makes up 
the highest perfection. — Milton. 

2. Learning gives us a fuller conviction 
of the imperfections of our nature ; which, 
one would think, might dispose us to mod- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 137 

esty : for the more a man knows, the more 
he discovers his ignorance. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

3. Learning hath its infancy, when it is 
almost childish ; then its youth, when luxu- 
rious and juvenile; then its strength of 
years, when solid ; and lastly its old age, 
when dry and exhaust. — Lord Bacon. 

4. Till a man can judge whether they 
be truths or no, his understanding is but 
little improved ; and thus men of much 
reading are greatly learned, but may be lit- 
tle knowing. — Locke. 

5. And verily they be fewest in number, 
that be happy or wise by unlearned experi- 
ence. And look well upon the former life 
of those few, whether your example be old 
or young, who, without learning, have 
gathered by long experience, a little wisdom 
and some happiness : and when yon do con- 
sider what mischief they have committed, 
what dangers they have escaped, (and twen- 
ty to one do perish in the adventure,) then 
think well with yourself, whether ye would 
that your own son should come to wisdom 
and happiness by the way of such experi- 
ence or no. — Roger Ascham. 



138 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

6. When men of learning are actuated 
by a knowledge of the world, they give a 
reputation to literature, and convince the 
world of its usefulness. — Addison. 

LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY. 

1. If a preacher should discourse, that 
there ought to be a parity among Christians, 
and that their goods should be in common ; 
all men will apprehend, that not princes and 
rich persons, but the poor and the servants, 
would soonest become disciples, and believe 
the doctrines ; because they are the only 
persons likely to get by them, and it con- 
cerns the other not to believe him, the 
doctrine being destructive of their in- 
terests. Just such a persuasion is every 
persevering love to a vicious habit, it hav- 
ing possessed the understanding with fair 
opinions of it, and surprised the will with 
passion and desires, whatsoever doctrine be 
its enemy, will, with infinite difficulty be 
entertained. — Jeremy Taylor. 

2. Liberty is the power in any agent, to 
do or forbear any particular action, accord- 
ing to the determination or thought of the 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 139 

mind, whereby either of them is preferred 
to the other. — Locke. 

3. Liberty is a latitude of practice, with- 
in the compass of law and religion, a 
standing clear of inferior dependencies and 
private jurisdictions. — Jeremy Collier. 

4. According to the equality wherein 
God hath placed all mankind, with regard 
to himself, in all the relations between man 
and man, there is a mutual dependence. — 
Swift. 

5. It is a necessary rule in alliances, so- 
cieties, and fraternities, and all manner of 
civil contracts, to have a strict regard to the 
humor of those we have to do with. — 

L'ESTRANGE. 

LITERARY REWARD. 

1. That lasting fame and perpetuity of 
praise which God and good men have con- 
sented, shall be the reward of those whose 
published works advance the good of man- 
kind. — Milton. 

2. To estimate the value of Newton's 
discoveries, or the delight communicated 
by Shakspeare and Milton, by the price 



140 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

at which their works have sold, would be but 
a poor measure of the degree in which they 
have elevated and enchanted their country. 
Some unproductive labor is of much more 
use and importance than productive labor, 
but is incapable of being the subject of the 
gross calculations which relate to national 
wealth ; contributing to other sources of 
happiness besides those which are derived 
from matter. — Malthus. 

3. Knowledge was conferred on man, 
for a nobler purpose than to be made a mere 
instrument to supply his temporal wants. 
Its source is in heaven, its aspirings are 
celestial, and it is an outrage on the dignity 
of the Donor, were we to degrade that glo- 
rious gift, which He intended to shine as 
a light to the world, into a mere kitchen 
fire, by which to warm our earthen pot. 
Therefore our teacher, Rabbi Zadock, tells 
us, Prostitute not thy talents; look not 
upon them as given thee for the purpose 
only of enabling thee to gain the pittance 
thou requirest for thy daily support. What ! 
though thou art poor as thou art learned, 
though thy unremitting toil does not pro- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 141 

cure thee wherewithal to supply the wants 
of thy sinking frame, still persevere in thy 
noble disinterestedness ; be firm in the re- 
liance on thy God, and do not endanger 
thy eternal happiness for a few short and 
fleeting enjoyments of this life. Hillel,* 
who was himself so poor, that his utmost 
labor as a wood-cutter barely supplied him 
with food, has left thee a precept which de- 
mands thy full attention. He said, " who- 
soever abuseth the Crown perisheth — 
not in this world only, for here it is the 
common lot of all mankind to die ; but he 
deprives himself of life everlasting, and 
shuts himself up from that happiness, which 
is the certain reward of him who has fought 
the good fight of virtue and piety, not in- 
fluenced by vanity, or subdued by poverty, 
but upheld by the grace of his God." He 
farther said in another place, " consider not 
thy learning as a diadem for thy aggrandize- 
ment, nor as a hatchet to labor with." Hil- 



# A learned Rabbi, who reformed the Jewish Calen- 
dar, and was one of the authors of that portion of the 
Talmud called " Gemara," about A. D. 306.— Ed. 



142 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

lei, likewise, used to say, " he who abuseth 
the crown perisheth." Hence thou art 
taught that whosoever degrades the Law 
into a mere source of profit, depriveth him- 
self of life. — Ethics of the Fathers. 

4. No difference is so easily perceived as 
that which a knowledge or an ignorance of 
ancient literature creates in the manner, the 
look, the voice, and the language of men, 
who attempt upon any occasion to utter 
their opinions in public ; and this even when 
nature may not have been liberal in the gift 
of eloquence. Under the influence of the 
former there is a lucid order, a chastity of 
sentiment, and a language of appropriate 
manliness and harmony. The manner will 
be composed and independent, the tones of 
the voice firm, and adapted to the occasion. 
In short, such a man shall say but very few 
words, before you are thoroughly convinced, 
that he has formed an intimate acquaint- 
ance with those great characters, who have 
justly obtained an immortal name. — Sir 
William Blackstone. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 143 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

1. The Lord's Prayer is short, mysteri- 
ous, and, like the treasures of the Spirit, 
full of wisdom and latent senses ; it is not 
improper to draw forth those excellencies, 
which are intended and signified by every 
petition, that by so excellent an authority, 
we may know what it is lawful to beg of 
God. — Jere^iy Taylor. 

2. Si tamen recte et congruenter oramus, 
nihil aliud dicere possumus quam quod in 
Oratio Dominica continetur. — St. Augus- 
tine. 

LOVE. 
Loye is the greatest instrument of na- 
ture, the bond and cement of Society, the 
spirit and spring of the Universe. Love is 
such an affection as cannot so properly be 
said to be in the soul as the soul to be in 
that : it is the whole man wrapt up into one 
desire. — Dr. South. 

LOVE OF MONEY. 
The love of money is a vertiginous pool, 
sucking all into it to destroy it. It is trou- 



144 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

bled and uneven, giddy and unsafe, serving 
no end but its own, and that also in a 
restless and uneasy motion. But the love 
of God is a holy fountain, limpid and pure, 
sweet and salutary, lasting and eternal. 
The love of God spends itself upon him 
to receive again the reflections of grace and 
benediction : the love of money spends all 
its desires upon itself to purchase nothing 
but unsatisfying instruments of exchange, 
or supernumerary provisions, and ends in 
dissatisfaction, emptiness of spirit, and a 
bitter curse. — Jeremy Taylor. 

LOVE OF TRUTH. 
The enquiry after Truth, which is the 
love-making or wooing of it, the knowl- 
edge of Truth, the preference of it ; and 
the belief of Truth, the enjoying of it, is 
the sovereign good of human nature. — 
Lord Bacon. 

MAMMON. 
God of the world and worldlings, 
Great Mammon ! greatest god below the sky. 

Spenser. 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. 145 



MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 
Masters must correct their servants with 
gentleness, prudence and mercy ; not with 
upbraiding and disgraceful language, but 
with such only as may express and reprove 
the fault and amend the person. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

MATHEMATICS. 

Mathematics is a way to settle in the 
mind a habit of reasoning closely and in 
train. Not that I think it necessary that 
all men should be deep mathematicians ; 
but that having got the way of reasoning, 
which that study necessarily brings the 
mind to, they might be able to transfer it 
to other parts of knowledge as they have 
occasion. — Locke. 

MATTER OF PRAYER. 
1. Our first inquiry must be, the matter 
of our prayers : for our desires are not to be 
the rule of our prayers, unless Reason and 
Religion be the rule of our desires. The 
old Heathens prayed to their gods for such 
10 



146 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

things which they were ashamed to name 
publicly before men ; and these were their 
private* prayers, which they durst not, for 
their indecency or iniquity, make public. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

2. Thy pray'rs the test of heaven will 

bear ; 
Nor need'st thou take the gods aside to 

hear : 
While other e'en the mighty men of Rome, 
Big swelPd with mischief to the temples 

come ; 
And in low murmurs and with costly 

smoke, 
Heav'n's help, to prosper their black vows, 

invoke. 

So boldly to the gods mankind reveal 

What from each other they, for shame, con- 
ceal. 

Give me good fame, ye pow'rs, and make 
me just. 

Thus much the rogue to public ears will 
trust, 



# See Addison's apologue of Menippus in Olympus ; 
Spectator, No. 391. Ed. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 147 

In private, then — when wilt thou, mighty 

Jove, 
My wealthy uncle from this world remove ? 
Or — O thou thunderer's son, great Her- 
cules, 
That once thy bounteous deity would please 
To guide my rake upon the chinking sound 
Of some vast treasure hidden under ground ! 

were my pupil fairly knock'd o' th' head. 

1 should possess th' estate if he were dead. 

Persius, Sat. ii. v. 3. Dryden's trans. 

3. The vanity of men's wishes, which 
are the natural prayers of the mind, as well 
as many of those secret devotions which 
they offer to the Supreme Being, are well 
exposed by Socrates and Plato, not to men- 
tion Juvenal and Persius, who have made 
the finest satires in their works upon this 
subject. Among other reasons for set forms 
of Prayers. I have often thought it a very 
good one. that by this means the folly and 
extravagance of men's desires may be kept 
within due bounds, and not break out in 
absurd and ridiculous petitions on so great 
and solemn an occasion. — Addison. 



148 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



MEDITATION. 
Meditation is the tongue of the Soul 
and the language of our Spirit ; and our 
wandering thoughts in prayer are but the 
neglects of meditation and recessions from 
that duty ; and according as we neglect 
meditation, so are our prayers imperfect; 
meditation being the soul of prayer and 
the intention of our Spirit. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

MEN OF KNOWLEDGE AND MEN OF TASTE. 
South, in his* oration at the opening of 
the Sheldonian theatre at Oxford, passed 
this bitter sarcasm on the naturalists, — 
" mirantur nihil nisi puliccs ; pediculos — 
et se ipsos ; " they admire nothing except 
lice; fleas — and themselves. The illus- 
trious Sloane endured a long persecution 
from the bantering humor of Dr. King. 
One of the most amusing declaimers against 
what he calls les sciences des faux Sg avails 
is Father Malebranche ; he is far more se- 

# See Elmes's Life of Wren, p. 271. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 149 

vere than Cornelius Agrippa, and he long 
preceded Rousseau, so famous for his invec- 
tives against the sciences. The seventh 
chapter of his fourth book is an inimitable 
satire. •• The principal excuse. 7 ' says he, 
••which engages men in false studies, is, 
that they have attached the idea of learned 
where they should not." Astronomy, an- 
tiquarianism, history, ancient poetry, and 
natural history, are all mowed down by his 
metaphysical scythe. When we become 
acquainted with the idea Father Male- 
branche attaches to the term learned, we 
understand him — and we smile. — DTs- 

RAELI. 

MEN v. BOOKS. 
To take measures wholly from Books 
without looking into men and business, is 
like travelling in a map: where, although 
countries and cities are well enough dis- 
tinguished, yet villages and private seats 
are either overlooked, or too generally 
marked for a stranger to find : and there- 
fore, he that would be a master must draw 
from the life, as well as copy from origi- 



150 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

nals, and join theory and experience to- 
gether. — Jeremy Collier. 

MEN OF VALOR. 

For men there are to be considered the 
valor and the numbers, the old observation 
is not untrue, that the Spaniards' valor 
lieth to the eye of the looker-on, but the 
English valor lieth about the soldier's 
heart. — Lord Bacon's Spanish War. 

MENTAL PLEASURES. 
Pleasures of the mind are more at com- 
mand than those of the body. A man 
may think of a handsome performance or 
of a notion that pleases him, at his leisure. 
This entertainment is ready, with little 
warning or expense ; a short recollection 
brings it upon the stage, brightens the idea 
and makes it shine as much as when it was 
first stamped upon the memory. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

MENTAL PRAYER. 
Mental prayer, when our spirits wan- 
der, is like a watch standing still, because 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 151 

the spring is down ; wind it up again and 
it goes on regularly. But in vocal prayer, 
if the words run on and the spirit wanders, 
the clock strikes false, the hand points not 
to the right hour, because something is in 
disorder, and the striking is nothing but 
noise. In mental prayer we confess God's 
omniscience, in vocal prayer we call an- 
gels to witness. In the first our spirits 
rejoice in God, in the second the angels 
rejoice in us. Mental prayer is the best 
remedy against lightness and indiffereney 
of affections, but vocal prayer is the aptest 
instrument of communion. That is more 
Angelical, but yet is fittest for the state of 
separation and glory: this is but human, 
but it is apter for our present constitution. 
They have their distinct proprieties, and 
may be used according to several accidents, 
occasions or dispositions. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

MILTON'S CHILDHOOD. 

When I was yet a child, no childish play 

To me was pleasing : all my mind was set 

Serious to learn and know, and thence to 

do 



1 152 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

What might be public good : myself I 

thought 
Born to that end, born to promote all truth, 
All righteous things. — Milton. 

MILTON'S PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH. 

Which way to get out, or which way to 
end I know not, unless I turn mine eyes 
and lift up my hands, to that eternal and 
propitious throne, where nothing is readier 
than grace and refuge to the distresses of 
mortal suppliants. And it were a shame 
to leave these serious thoughts less piously 
than the heathen were wont to conclude 
their graver discourses. 

Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and 
glory unapproachable, Parent of Angels 
and men ! Next thee I implore, omnipo- 
tent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant 
whose nature thou didst assume, ineffable 
and everlasting Love ! And thou, the third 
subsistence of divine infinitude, illuming 
Spirit, the joy and solace of created things ! 
One tripersonal Godhead ! Look upon this 
thy poor and almost spent and expiring 
Church : leave her not a prey to these im- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 153 

portunate wolves, that wait and think long 
till they devour thy tender flock : these 
wild boars that have broke into thy vine- 
yard, and left the print of their polluting 
hoofs on the souls of thy servants. O let 
them not bring about their damned designs, 
that stand now at the entrance of the bot- 
tomless pit, expecting the watch-word to 
open and let out those dreadful locusts and 
scorpions, to re-involve us in that pitchy 
cloud of infernal darkness, where we shall 
never more see the sun of thy truth again, 
never hope for the cheerful dawn, never 
more hear the bird of morning sing. — 
Milton. 

AlIXD YOUR OWN BUSINESS. 
Have you so much leisure from your 
own business, that you can take care of 
other people's that does not at all belong to 
you ? — Terence. 

MIRACLES. 

1. Is it not extravagant to expect a mira- 
cle ? Not at all. I believe we are assisted 
with many more miracles than we are 






154 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

aware of. A man in a storm, prays that 
he may escape being wrecked. I desire to 
know whether he thinks it possible for 
him to be the better for his devotions ? 
If he does not, he is an impertinent atheist 
for using them : if he does, he must be- 
lieve that Providence will interpose and 
disarm nature, or divert her violence. Now, 
to check second causes in their career, to 
change their motion, or to lay them asleep 
before they are spent, is no less a miracle 
than to act without them. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

2. The evidence of our Saviour's mis- 
sion from Heaven is so great, in the multi- 
tude of miracles he did, before all sorts of 
people, (which the Divine Providence and 
Wisdom has so ordered, that they never 
were, nor could be denied by any of the 
enemies and opposers of Christianity,) that 
what he delivered cannot but be received 
as the Oracles of God. — Locke. 

3. The miracles of our Lord are pecu- 
liarly eminent above the lying wonders of 
demons, in that they were not made out of 
vain ostentation of power, arM to raise un- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 155 

profitable amazement ; but for the real ben- 
efit and advantage of men, by feeding the 
hungry, healing all sorts of diseases, eject- 
ing of devils and reviving the dead. — Dr. 
Bentley. 

MODERATION. 

Let our life be moderate, our desires 
reasonable, our hopes little, our ends none 
in eminency and prelation above others. 
For as the rays of light passing through 
the thin air, end in a small and undiscern- 
ible pyramis ; but reflected upon a wall 
are doubled and increase the warmth to a 
scorching and troublesome heat ; so the 
desires of man, if they pass through an 
even and an indifferent life toAvards the 
issues of an ordinary and necessary course, 
they are little and within command ; but 
if they pass upon an end or aim of diffi- 
culty or ambition, they duplicate and grow 
to a disturbance ; and we have seen the 
even and temperate lives of indifferent 
persons continue in many degrees of 
innocence ; but the temptations of busy 
designs is too great even for the best of 
dispositions. — Jeremy Taylor. 



156 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



MONKISH HATRED OF LITERATURE. 
The Emperor Manuel Comnenus en- 
dowed a monastery founded by himself, 
with no estates, fields or vineyards, but in- 
stead thereof assigned it a fixed income 
from the Imperial Treasury ; and commit- 
ted to the secular magistrates the manage- 
ment of all the other monastic revenues, 
that the monks might not be seduced to 
busy themselves with things foreign to 
their profession. Ye cannot serve God 
and Mammon. Too many of ye have 
turned monks for a livelihood, and are 
totally ignorant of that Divine Wisdom, 
by which man is brought into connec- 
tion with God; and possess a thorough 
hatred of literature.* If a man of literary 
attainments come to them to retire as into 
a haven from the storms of the world, they 
all look shy upon him ; such a sort of per- 
son, they say, is of no use to them, they 
want no grammarian. They throw open 
their doors to ignorance and welcome it as 

Lib. vii. p. 270. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 157 

a fit companion to their sanctity, yet they 
banish far away the scribes of the King- 
dom of Heaven. — Nicenas Chaniates. 



MORAL EFFECTS OF SEASONS OF MOURNING 
UPON NATIONS. 

It is ,a sad calamity to see a kingdom 
spoiled and a church afflicted ; the priests 
slain with the sword, and the blood of no- 
bles mixed with cheaper sand ; religion 
made a cause of trouble, and the best 
men most cruelly persecuted ; government 
turned and laws ashamed ; judges decree- 
ing in fear and covetousness, and- the min- 
isters of Holy Things setting themselves 
against all that is sacred. And what shall 
make recompense for this heap of sorrows 
when God shall send such swords of fire ? 
Even the mercies of God, which shall then 
be made public, when the people shall have 
suffered for their sins. For so I have 
known a luxuriant vine, swell into irregu- 
lar twigs and bold excrescences, and spend- 
itself in leaves and little rings, and afford 
but few blusters to the wine-press ; but 
when the Lord of the Vineyard had caused 



158 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the dressers to cut the wilder plant and 
make it bleed, it grew temperate in its vain 
expense of useless leaves, and knotted into 
fair and juicy branches, and made account 
of that loss of blood, by the return of fruit. 
It is thus of an afflicted kingdom, cured of 
its surfeits and punished for its sins ; it 
bleeds for its long riot, and is left ungov- 
erned for its disobedience, and is chastised 
for its wantonness ; and when the sword 
hath let forth the corrupted blood and the 
fire hath purged the rest, then it enters into 
the double joys of restitution and gives 
God thanks for his rod, and confesses the 
mercies of the Lord in making the smoke 
to be changed into fire, and his anger into 
mercy. — Jeremy Taylor. 

MORALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 
In morality there are books enough 
written both by ancient and modern philoso- 
phers, but the morality of the Gospel doth 
so exceed them all, that to give a man a 
full knowledge of true morality, I shall 
send him to no other Book than the New 
Testament. — Locke. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 159 



NATURAL RELIGION. 

1. Concerning the precepts of Religion 
that Jesus taught us, he took of those many 
superinduced rites, which God enjoined to 
the Jews, and reduced us to the Natural 
Religion, that is, to such expressions of 
duty, which all wise men and nations used ; 
save only that he took away the rite of 
sacrificing beasts, because it was now de- 
termined in the great sacrifice of himself, 
which efficiently reconciled all the world 
to God. All the other things, as Prayer 
and Adoration and Eucharist, and Faith in 
God, are of a natural order and an unalter- 
able expression ; and in the nature of the 
thing, there is no other way of address to 
God than these ; no other expression of 
His Glories and our needs. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

2. I call that Natural Religion, which 
men might know, and should be obliged 
unto, by the mere principles of Reason, 
improved by consideration and experience, 
without the help of Revelation. — Bishop 

WlLKJNS. 



160 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



NATURE. 

1. By grace divine, 

Not otherwise, O nature, are we thine. 
Wordsworth. 

2. Nature, sometimes means the Author 
of Nature, or natura naturans ; as Nature 
hath made man partly corporeal, and partly 
immaterial. For Nature, in this sense, 
may be used the word Creator. Nature 
sometimes means that, on whose account a 
thing is what it is and is called ; as when 
we define the nature of an angel. For 
nature in this sense may be used, essence 
or quality. 

Nature sometimes means what belongs 
to a living creature at its nativity, or ac- 
crues to it at its birth ; as when we say, a 
man is noble by nature, a child is naturally 
forward. This may be expressed by say- 
ing, the man was born so, the thing was 
generated such. Nature sometimes means 
an internal principle of local motion : as 
we say, the stone falls, or the flame rises, 
by nature ; for this we may say, that the 
motion up or down is. spontaneous, or pro- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



161 



duced by its proper cause. Nature some- 
times means the established course of things 
corporeal ; as nature makes the night suc- 
ceed the day. This may be termed estab- 
lished order, or settled course. 

Nature sometimes means the aggregate 
of the powers belonging to a body, espe- 
cially a living one ; as when physicians 
say, that nature is strong, or nature left to 
herself will do the cure. For this, may 
be used, constitution, temperament or struc- 
ture of the body. Nature is put likewise 
for the system of the corporeal works of 
God; as there is no Phoenix or Chimera 
in Nature. For nature, thus applied, we 
may use the world or the universe. Nature 
is sometimes indeed taken for a kind of 
semi-deity. In this sense it is better not 
to use it at all. — The Hon. Robert Boyle's 
Free Enquiry into the received Notion of 
Nature, 

3. Although life is often lavished away 
to ill purposes, yet it is not good to strain 
Nature too much, and set her upon the ten- 
ters. A man may be too covetous of un- 
11 



162 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

derstanding, and a miser in his head as well 
as in his pocket. — Jeremy Collier. 

NATURE AND ART. 
Should a man live under ground, and 
there converse with works of art and me- 
chanism, and should afterwards be brought 
into the open day, and see the several glo- 
ries of Heaven and earth, he would imme- 
diately pronounce them to be the works of 
such a Being as we define God to be. — 
Aristotle. 

OLD WISE SPIRITS. 
I consider that the wisest persons, and 
those who know how to value and entertain 
the more noble faculties of their soul and 
their precious hours, take more pleasure in 
reading the productions of those old wise 
spirits, who preserved natural reason and 
religion, in the midst of the Heathen dark- 
ness. Such as Homer, Euripides, Orpheus, 
Pindar and Anacreon ; iEschylus and Me- 
nander, and all the Greek Poets ; Plutarch 
and Polybius, Xenophon and all those other 
excellent persons of both faculties, whose 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 163 

choicest dictates are collected by Stobaeus; 
Plato and his scholars, Aristotle, and after 
him Porphyry and all his other disciples : 
Pythagoras and his, especially Hierocles. 
All the old Academics and Stoics within 
the Roman schools : — more pleasure I say, 
in reading these, than the triflings of many 
of the later Schoolmen, who promoted the 
petty interest of a family, or an unlearned 
opinion with great earnestness, but added 
nothing to Christianity, but trouble, scruple 
and vexation. — Jeremy Taylor. 

OPIATES. 

1. Pleasant retrospections, easy thoughts, 
and comfortable presages, are admirable 
opiates. They help to assuage the anguish, 
and disarm the distemper, and almost make 
make a man despise his misery. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

2. Some fly to atheism as an opiate, to 
still those frightening apprehensions of a 
future state of rewards and punishment, 
by inducing a dulness and lethargy of 
mind, rather than to make use of that na- 
tive and salutary medicine, a hearty repen- 
tance. — Bentley. 



164 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



OPINION. 
Opinion is alight, vain, crude and imper- 
fect thing, settled in the imagination, but 
never arriving at the understanding, there 
to obtain the tincture of Reason. — Ben 
Jonson. 

ORIGIN OF MAHOMETANISM. 
When the Religion formerly received is 
rent by discords, and when the Holiness of 
Professors of Religion is decayed and full 
of scandal, and withal, the times be stupid, 
ignorant and barbarous, you may doubt the 
springing up of a new sect ; if then also 
there should arise any extravagant and 
strange spirit, to make himself author there- 
of ; all which held when Mahomet pub- 
lished his law. — Lord Bacon. 

ORIGIN OF THE MIND. 
1. The mind is Heaven-born, and comes 
immediately out of the hands of God ; so 
that to speak properly, we are nearer re- 
lated to the Supreme Being than to father 
and mother. Nemo est tarn Pater, says 
Tertullian. — Jeremy Collier. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 165 

2. The Mind being also used for the 
soul, giving life, is attributed absolutely to 
madmen, when we say they are of a dis- 
tracted mind, instead of a broken under- 
standing ; which word, mind, we use also 
for opinion, as, I am not of this or that 
mind; and sometimes for men's conditions 
or virtues ; as, he is of an honest mind, or, 
a man of a just mind ; sometimes for affec- 
tion, as, I do this for my mind's sake ; 
sometimes for the knowledge of principles 
which we have, without discourse ; often- 
times for Spirits, Angels and Intelligences. 
But when it is used in the proper significa- 
tion, including both the understanding 
agent and passible, it is described to be a 
pure, simple, substantial act, not depending 
upon matter, but having relation to that 
which is intelligible, as to its first object, 
or more at large, thus ; a part or particle of 
the soul, whereby it doth understand, not 
depending upon matter, nor needing any 
organ, free from passion coming from with- 
out, and apt to be dissevered, as eternal, 
from that which is mortal. — Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 



166 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

ORIGIN OF POWER. 
Some philosophers have placed the origin 
of Power, in the Admiration, either of sur- 
passing form, great valor, or superior under- 
standing. — Sir William Davenant. 

PERFECTION. 

1. There is not one grain in the Uni- 
verse, either too much or too little, nothing 
to be added, nothing to be spared : nor so 
much as any .one particle of it, that man- 
kind may not be either the better or the 
worse for, according as it is applied. — 
L' Estrange. 

2. Man doth seek a triple perfection ; first 
a sensual, consisting in those things which 
very life itself requireth, either as neces- 
sary supplements, or as ornaments thereof: 
then an intellectual, consisting in those 
things which none underneath man is ca- 
pable of; lastly, a spiritual and divine, 
consisting in those things whereby we tend 
by supernatural means here, but cannot here 
attain. — Hooker. 

3. God, though he be omnipotent, can- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 167 

not make any created being absolutely per- 
feet ; for what is absolutely perfect, must 
necessarily be self-existent. But it is in- 
cluded in the very notion of a creature, as 
such, not to exist of itself, but of God. 
An absolutely perfect creature, therefore, 
implies a contradiction ; for it would be of 
itself and not of itself at the same time. 
Absolute perfection, therefore, is peculiar 
to God, and should he communicate his 
own peculiar perfection to another, that 
other would be God. Imperfection must 
therefore be tolerated in creatures, notwith- 
standing the Divine Omnipotence and 
goodness ; for contradictions are no objects 
of power. God indeed might have re- 
frained from acting, and continued alone 
self-sufficient and perfect to all eternity ; 
but infinite goodness would by no means 
allow of this, and therefore since it obliged 
him to produce external things, which 
things could not possibly be perfect, it pre- 
ferred these imperfect things to none at all ; 
whence it follows, that imperfection arose 
from the Infinity of Divine Goodness. — 
Archbishop King. 



163 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

POST-AUGUSTAN WRITERS. 
In the writers who flourished after the 
Augustan age, the decay of taste is remark- 
able, although we should be deficient in 
justice not to acknowledge, that they 
possess a considerable share of beautiful 
imagery, lively description, and just obser- 
vation, both in poetry and prose. Seneca 
degraded the dignity of his moral treatises, 
by sentences too pointed, and ornaments of 
rhetoric, too numerous and studied ; and 
Pliny gave too labored and epigrammatic 
a turn to his Epistles. Lucan indulged 
the extravagance and wildness of his ge- 
nius in puerile flights of fancy ; and Taci- 
tus fettered the powers of his judgment, 
and obscured the brightness of his imagi- 
nation, by elaborate brevity, and by dark 
and distant allusions.* Such affectation was 
in vain substituted for the charms of nature 

# The character given by King to Timanthes, may be 
justly applied to Tacitus. " In omnibus ejus operibus 
intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur ; et cum ars sum- 
ma sit ; ingenium tamen ultra artem est." — Lib. xxxv. 
c. 10. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 169 

and simplicity. So fruitless is the attempt 
to supply, by gaudy ornaments of dress, and 
artificial beauty of complexion, the want of 
genuine charms, and the native bloom of 
youth. — Kett. 

POSTHUMOUS FAME. 

1. In our present miserable and divided 
condition, how just soever a man's preten- 
sions may be to a great or blameless repu- 
tation, he must, with regard to his posthu- 
mous character, content himself with such 
a consideration, as induced the famous Sir 
Francis Bacon, after having bequeathed 
his soul to God, and his body to the earth, 
to leave his fame to foreign nations. — 
Addison. 

2. It is a glorious privilege to have one's 
memory gloriously handed down to after 
ages, and to stand upon record to the latest 
periods of time. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. Those who despise Fame, seldom de- 
serve it. We are apt to undervalue the 
purchase we cannot reach, to conceal our 
poverty the better. It is a spark which 
kindles upon the best fuel, and burns 
brightest in the bravest breast. — Ibid. 



170 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



PRAYER. 

1. Three-fold are the prayers of man 
to God, and their efficacy is also ascending 
in its degrees. The quiet prayer of the 
heart is acceptable to the All-merciful ; He 
hears and graciously receives it from the 
moving lip. The loud cry of distress in 
the hour of need, pierces the sky, and heaps 
burning coals on the head of the oppressor. 
But more mighty than these is the mute 
tear of the sufferer, who steadfastly cleaves 
to his God, even though he dies. It forces 
the gates of Heaven, bursts locks and bolts, 
appears before the throne of mercy, and 
calls down the look of Him, who indeed 
seeth. — Talmud. 

2. The solemn worship of God is neg- 
lected in many congregations ; and instead 
thereof, an indigested form and conception 
of extemporal prayer is substituted. — Dr. 
White. 

3. Prayer is public or private; in the 
communion or society of saints, or in our 
closets. These prayers have less tempta- 
tion to vanity, the other have more advan- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 171 

tages of charity, example, fervor and energy. 
In public offices we avoid singularity, in the 
private we avoid hypocrisy ; those are of 
more edification, these of greater retiredness 
and silence of spirit : those serve the need 
of all the world in the first intention, and 
our own by consequence. These serve our 
own need first, and the public only by a 
secondary intention: these have more plea- 
sure, they more duty. These are the best 
instruments of repentance, where our con- 
fessions may be more particular, and our 
shame less scandalous ; the other the better 
for eucharist and instruction, for edification 
of the Church, and glorification of God. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

PRE-EMINENCE. 
If you would have your pre-eminence 
admired in yourself, and not for your pre- 
decessor's worth, give some specimen of 
personal merit, that may signalize your 
character more than those honors which 
we have always given to them from whom 
you derive your nobility. — Juvenal. 



172 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



PREJUDICE. 
Prejudice is an equivocal term, and 
may as well mean right opinions taken 
upon trust, and deeply rooted in the mind, 
as false and absurd opinions so derived and 
grown into it. The former of these will 
do no hurt ; on the contrary, perhaps, the 
very best part of education is employed in 
the culture of them. — Bishop Hurd. 

PREROGATIVE. 

1. They are the best laws, by which 
the King hath the justest prerogative, and 
the People the best liberty. — Lord Bacon. 

2. Prerogative, in the hands of a Prince, 
is a sceptre of gold ; but in the hands of 
the people a rod of iron. — Thomas Hall. 
1691. 

PRIDE. 
Pride is so unsociable a vice, and does 
all things with so ill a grace, that there is 
no closing with it. A proud man will be 
sure to challenge more than belongs to him ; 
you must expect him stiff in his conversa- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 173 

tion, fulsome in commending himself, and 
bitter in his reproofs. — Jeremy Collier. 

PRUDENCE. 

1. Prudence is that virtue by which we 
discern what is proper to be done under the 
various circumstances of time and place. — 
Milton. 

2. Prudence is a necessary ingredient in 
all the virtues, without which they degene- 
rate into folly and excess. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

CHARACTER OF QUEEN ANNE. 
When was there ever a better Prince on 
the throne than the present* Queen ? I do 
not talk of her government, her love of the 
people, or qualities that are purely regal; 
but her piety, charity, temperance and con- 
jugal love. — Swift. 

READING. 
1. Though reading and conversation 
may furnish us with many ideas of men 

* What was true in 1704 is equally true in 1851, 
and Swift's character of Queen Anne is equally appli- 
cable to Queen Victoria. — Ed. 



174 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

and things ; yet it is our own meditation 
that must form our judgment. — Dr. Isaac 
Watts. 

2. Reading maketh a full man ; confer- 
ence a ready man, and writing a correct 
man ; and therefore, if a man write little, 
he had need of a great memory ; if he con- 
fer little, he need have a present wit ; and 
if he read little, he need have much cun- 
ning, to seem to know that he doth not. — 
Lord Bacon. 

3. A man may as well expect to grow 
stronger by always eating, as wiser by 
always reading. Too much overcharges 
nature ; and turns more into disease than 
nourishment. It is thought and digestion 
which makes Books serviceable and gives 
health and vigor to the mind. Books well 
chosen, neither dull the appetite nor strain 
the memory ; but refresh the inclinations, 
strengthen the powers, and improve under 
experiments. By reading a man does, as it 
were, ante-date his life and makes himself 
contemporary with past ages. — Jeremy 
Collier. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 175 



REALITY. 
The best accounts of the appearances 
of nature, in any single instance that hu- 
man penetration can reach, comes infinitely 
short of its reality and internal constitu- 
tion ; for who can search out the Almighty's 
works to perfection? — Dr. Cheyne. 

REASON. 
1. Many there be that complain of Di- 
vine Providence, for suffering Adam to 
transgress. Foolish tongues ! when God 
gave him Reason, he gave him freedom to 
choose, for reason is but choosing ; he had 
been else a mere artificial Adam, such an 
Adam as he is in the motions.* We our- 
selves esteem not of that obedience, or 
love, or gift, which is of force. God there- 
fore left him free, set before him a provok- 
ing object, ever almost in his eyes ; herein 
consisted his merit, herein the right of his 
reward, the praise of his abstinence. — 
Milton. 

* In olden times, a puppet-show. — Ed. 



170 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. Reason is the glory of human nature, 
and one of the chief eminences whereby 
we are raised above our fellow creatures, 
the beasts, in this lower world. — Isaac 
Watts. 

3. There are few things Reason can dis- 
cover with so much certainty and ease, as 
its own insufficiency. — Jeremy Collier. 

4. Reason is the director of man's will, 
discovering in action what is good ; for the 
laws of well-doing are the dictates of right 
reason. — Hooker. 

5. It would be well if people would not 
lay so much weight on their own Reason in 
matters of Religion, as to think every thing 
impossible and absurd which they cannot 
conceive. How often do we contradict 
the right rules of reason in the whole course 
of our lives ? Reason itself is true and just, 
but the reason of every particular man is 
weak and wavering, perpetually swayed 
and turned by his interests, his passions, 
and his vices. — Swift. 

6. Reason in the English language is 
sometimes taken for true and clear princi- 
ple ; sometimes for clear and fair deduc- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 177 

tions; sometimes for the cause, particularly 
the final cause. — Locke. 

7. Reason elevates our thoughts as high 
as the stars, and leads us through the vast 
spaces of this mighty fabric : yet it comes 
far short of the real extent of our corpo- 
real being. — Ibid. 

THE REFORMATION. , 

It is a singular circumstance, that the 
Reformation should be indebted for its full 
establishment in Germany, to the same 
hand which had formerly brought it to the 
brink of destruction ; and that both events 
should be accomplished by the same arts of 
dissimulation. The ends however which 
Maurice, the Elector of Saxony, had in 
view at these different junctures, seem to 
have been more attended to. than the means 
by which he attained them. It is no less 
worthy of observation, that the French king, 
a Monarch zealous for the Catholic Faith, 
should at the very same time when he was 
persecuting his own Protestant subjects 
with all the fierceness of bigotry, employ 
his power in order to maintain and protect 
12 



178 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the Reformation in the empire ; and that 
the league for this purpose which proved so 
fatal to the Romish Church, should be ne- 
gotiated and signed by a Roman Catholic 
Bishop. So wonderfully doth the wisdom 
of God superintend and regulate the caprice 
of human passions, and render them sub- 
servient towards the accomplishment of his 
own purposes. — Dr. Robertson. 

REFORMERS. 

t. I can but think it a subject of laugh- 
ter as well as of wonder, that you take upon 
yourself to play the Censor, and set up for 
a reformer of mankind ; for he that assumes 
a pretension of correcting others, ought to 
be free from the imputations of the least 
propensity to vice himself. — Phalaris, 
Ep. to Cleostratus. 

2. Public Reformers had need first 
practise on their own hearts, that which 
they purpose to try on others. — King 
Charles. 

REGALITY. 

The Majesty of England might hang 
like Mahomet's tomb, by a magnetic charm, 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 179 

between the privileges of the two Houses, 
in airy imagination of Regality. — Ibid. 

RELIGION. 

1. By Religion, I mean that general habit 
of reverence towards the Divine Nature, 
whereby we are enabled and. inclined to 
worship God after such a manner as we 
conceive most agreeable to his will, so as 
to procure his favor and blessing. — Bishop 

WlLKINS. 

2. Religion is a public virtue, it is the 
ligature of souls and the great instrument 
of the conservation of Bodies politic ; and 
is united in a common object, the God of 
all the world, and is managed by pub- 
lic ministeries, by sacrifice, adoration and 
prayer ; in which, with variety of circum- 
stances indeed, but with infinite consent 
and unity of design, all the sons of xldam 
are taught to worship God. No man can 
hinder our private addresses to Him, every 
man can build a chapel in his breast, him- 
self the Priest, his heart the sacrifice, and 
the earth he treads on the Altar. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 



180 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



REMORSE. 
Remorse of conscience is like an old 
wound : a man is in no condition to fight 
under such circumstances. The pain abates 
his vigor and takes up too much of his at- 
tention. — Jeremy Collier. 

REVELATION. 

1. Revelation claims to be the voice of 
God ; and our obligation to attend to His 
voice is surely moral in all cases. And as 
it is insisted that its evidence is conclusive, 
upon thorough consideration of it ; so it 
offers itself to us with manifest obvious 
appearances of having something more than 
human in it, and therefore in all reason re- 
quires us to have its claims most seriously 
examined. — Bishop Butler. 

2. Many writers upon the subject of 
Moral Philosophy, divide too much the law 
of nature from the precepts of Revelation ; 
which appears to me to be much the same 
defect, as if a commentator on the laws of 
England, should content himself with stat- 
ing upon each head the common law of the 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 181 

land, without taking any notice of Acts of 
Parliament : or should choose to give his 
readers the common law in one book and 
the statute law in the other. "When the 
obligations of morality are taught," says 
Dr. Johnson in his preface to the Preceptor, 
"let the sanctions of Christianity never be 
forgotten ; by which it will be shown that 
they give strength and lustre to each other ; 
Religion will appear to be the voice of Rea- 
son, and Morality the voice of God.*' — 
Archdeacon Paley. 

3. As the Gospel appears, in respect of 
the law, to be a clearer Revelation of the 
mystical part : so is it a far more benign dis- 
pensation of the practical part. — Bishop 
Sprat. 

4. The principles of Christianity deeply 
engraven in the heart, would be infinitely 
more powerful than the false honor of mon- 
archies, the human virtues of Republics or 
the servile fears of Despotic States. — De 
Montesquieu. 

REVENGE. 
1. A pure and simple Revenge does in 
no way restore man towards the felicity 



1S2 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

which the injury did interrupt. For revenge 
is but doing a simple evil, and does not in 
its formality imply reparation ; for the mere 
repeating of our own right is permitted to 
them that will do it by charitable instru- 
ments. All the ends of human felicity are 
secured without revenge, for without it we 
are permitted to restore ourselves ; and 
therefore it is against natural reason to do 
an evil, that no way co-operates the proper 
and perfective end of human nature. And 
he is a miserable person, whose good is the 
evil of his neighbor ; and he that revenges, 
in many cases, does worse than he that did 
the injury : — in all cases as bad. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

2. Revenge, when improved into habit 
and inclination, is the temper of a tyrant. 
It is a strong composition of pride and cru- 
elty, impatient of the least provocation and 
unconcerned at the mischiefs of a return. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

3. If revenge was general, and allowed 
to man, the evil would never end. If the 
angry wife shall kill her husband, the son 
will revenge his father's death, the brother 
will kill his mother's murderer, and he will 



A TIIOUGHT-BOOK. 183 

also meet with an avenger for slaying his 
brother. — Euripides. 

4. Revenge is an act of passion ; ven- 
geance of justice. Injuries are revenged. 
crimes are avenged. — Dr. Johnson. 

REVERIES. 
If the minds of men were laid open, we 
should see but little difference between that 
of the wise man and that of the fool ; there 
are infinite reveries and numberless extrav- 
agances pass through both. — xIddison. 

RICHES. 

1. Riches do not consist in having more 
gold and silver, but in having more in pro- 
portion than our neighbors ; whereby we 
are enabled to procure to ourselves a greater 
plenty of the conveniences of life, than 
comes within their reach, who, sharing the 
gold and silver of the world in a less pro- 
portion, want the means of plenty and 
power, and so are poorer. — Locke. 

2. What riches give us, let us first in- 

quire, 
Meat, fire and clothes ; what more ? 
meat, clothes and fire. — Pope. 



184 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



RISE AND FALL OF ROME. 
We have left the Empire of Rome, the 
last of the four great Monarchies of the 
world, flourishing in the middle of the 
field, having rooted up or cut down all 
that kept it from the eyes and admiration 
of the world. But after some continuance, 
it shall begin to lose the beauty it had ; 
the storms of ambition shall beat her great 
boughs and branches one against another, 
her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, 
and a rabble of barbarous nations shall 
enter the field and cut her down. — Sir 
Walter Raleigh. 

RIVALRY. 
It is the privilege of posterity, to set 
matters right between those antagonists, 
who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided 
a whole age. — Addison. 

ROBBERY. 
The robber must run, ride, and use all 
the desperate ways of escape he can find ; 
and probably, after all, his crime betrays 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 185 

him to the gaol, and from thence advances 
him to the gibbet. — Dr. South. 

RUDIMENTS. 
Could it be believed, that a child should 
be forced to learn the rudiments of a lan- 
guage, which he is never to use, and neg- 
lect the writing a good hand, and casting 
accounts ? — Locke. 

SAGACITY. 
Sagacity finds out the intermediate ideas, 
to discover what connection there is in each 
link of the chain, whereby the extremes 
are held together. — Locke. 

SAPIENCE. 
By Sapience, I mean what the ancients 
did by philosophy, the habit or disposition 
of mind which importeth the love of Wis- 
dom. — Grew. 

SARCASMS. 
When an angry master says to his ser- 
vant, it is bravely done, it is one way of 
giving a severe reproach ; for the words are 



186 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

spoken by way of sarcasm or irony. — Dr. 
Isaac Watts. 



SATIRE. 

1. He that hath a satirical vein, as 
maketh others afraid of his wit, so he need 
be afraid of others' memory. — Lord Ba- 
con. 

2. All vain pretenders have been con- 
stantly the topics of the most candid satir- 
ists, from the Codrus of Juvenal to the 
Damon of Boileau. — Cleveland. 

3. Should a writer single out and point 
his raillery at particular persons or satirize 
the miserable, he might be sure to please a 
great part of his readers ; but he must be a 
very ill man if he could please himself. — 
Addison. 

4. Satire and invective are the easiest 
kind of wit. Almost any degree of it will 
serve to abuse and find fault. For wit is 
a keen instrument, and every one can cut 
and thrust with it ; but to carve a beauti- 
ful statue, and to polish it, requires great 
art and dexterity. To praise any thing 
well, is an argument of much more wit 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 18? 

than to abuse. A little wit and a great 
deal of ill nature will furnish a man for 
satire, but the greatest instance of wit is to 
commend well. And perhaps the best 
things are the hardest to be duly com- 
mended. For although there be a great 
deal of matter to work upon, yet there is 
great judgment required to make choice, 
and where the subject is great and excel- 
lent, it is difficult not to sink below the 
dignity of it. — Archbishop Tillotson. 

5. It is as hard to satirize well a man of 
distinguished vices, as to praise well a man 
of distinguished virtues. — Swift. 

6. On me, when dunces are satiric 

I take it for a panegyric. — Ibid. 

7. You must not think, that a satiric 
style allows of scandalous and brutish 
words. — Roscommon. 

8. A satire should expose nothing but 
what is corrigible ; and should make a due 
discrimination between those that are, and 
those that are not the proper objects of it. 
— Addison. 



188 A TEOUGHT-BOOK. 

SELF-CONCEIT. 
Self-conceit is a weighty quality, and 
will sometimes bring down the scale when 
there is nothing else in it. It magnifies a 
fault beyond proportion, and swells every 
omission into an outrage. — Jeremy Col- 
lier. 

SELF-DENIAL. 
J Tis much the doctrine of the times that 
men should not please themselves, but deny 
themselves every thing they take delight 
in ; not to look upon Beauty, wear no good 
clothing, eat no good meat. The truth is, 
they that preach against them cannot make 
use of them themselves ; and then again, 
they gain esteem by seeming to contemn 
them. But, mark it while you live, if they 
do not please themselves as much as they 
can. — Selden. 

SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
1. We must regard ourselves as crimi- 
nals, whose prison is filled with represen- 
tations of their deliverers, and with the 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 189 

requisite directions for obtaining their free- 
dom. But it must be confessed that we 
cannot read these sacred symbols without 
a supernatural light ; for as all things speak 
of God to those who know Him, and reveal 
Him to those who love Him ; these very 
things yet tend to obscure him from those 
who know him not. — Pascal. 

2. Pleasure of what kind soever, is but 
an agreement between the object and the 
faculty. This description, if well applied, 
will give us the true height of ourselves 
and tell us what size we are. If little 
things will please us, we may conclude 
that we are none of the biggest people. 
Children are as well known by their diver- 
sions, as by their stature. — Jeremy Collier. 

SELF-PRAISE. 
A man's praises have very musical and 
charming accents in another's mouth ; but 
very flat and untuneable in his own. — 
Xenophon. 

SELF-TEACHING. 

Yert few men are wise by their own 
counsel, or learned by their own teaching; 



190 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

for he that was only taught by himself, 
had a fool for a master. — Ben Jonson. 

THE SENSES. 
1. The Creator has given us eyes, by 
the assistance of which, we discern the 
works of creation. He has, moreover, 
endowed us with the power of tasting, by 
which we perceive the parts entering into 
the composition of bodies : of smelling, 
that we may catch their subtle exhalations ; 
of hearing, that we may receive the sound 
of bodies around us ; and of touching, 
that we may examine their surfaces ; and 
all for the purpose of our comprehending, 
in some measure, the wisdom of His works. 
The same instruments of sensation are be- 
stowed on many other animals, who see, 
hear, smell, taste and feel ; but they want 
the faculty, which is granted us, of com- 
bining these sensations, and from thence 
drawing universal conclusions. When we 
subject the human body to the knife of the 
anatomist, in order to find in the structure 
of its internal organs, something which we 
do not observe in other animals, to account 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 191 

for this operation, we are obliged to own 
the vanity of our researches ; and must 
therefore necessarily ascribe this preroga- 
tive to something altogether immaterial, 
which the Creator has given to man alone, 
and which we call Soul. — Linnjeus. 

2. Of the five senses, two are usually 
and most properly called the Senses of 
Learning, as being most capable of receiv- 
ing communication of thought and motions, 
by selected signs : and these are hearing 
and seeing. — Dr. Holder. 

3. The lower your senses are kept, the 
better you may govern them. Appetite 
and Reason are commonly like two buck- 
ets, when one is at the top, the other is at 
the bottom. Now of the two, I had rather 
the Reason-bucket be uppermost. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

SENSUALITY. 
1. We are so incorporated to the desires 
of sensual objects, that we feel no relish 
or gust of the spiritual. It is as if a lion 
should eat hay, or an ox venison ; there is 
no proportion between the object and the 



192 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

appetite, till, by mortification of our first 
desires, our wills are made spiritual, and our 
apprehensions supernatural and clarified. 
For as a cook told Dionysius the Tyrant, 
the black broth of Lacedemon would not 
do well at Syracuse, unless it be tasted by 
a Spartan palate ; so neither can the excel- 
lencies of Heaven be discerned, but by a 
spirit disrelishing the sottish appetites of 
the world, and accustomed to diviner ban- 
quets. And this was mystically signified 
by the two altars in Solomon's Temple ; 
in the outer court whereof, beasts were 
sacrificed, in the inner court an altar of 
incense; the first representing Mortification, 
or slaying of our beastly appetites ; the 
second the offering up of prayers, which 
are not likely to become a pleasant offertory, 
unless our impurities be removed by the 
atonement made by the previous sacrifices. 
— Jeremy Taylor. 

2. Men in general are too partial in favor 
of a sensual appetite, to take notice of 
Truth, when they have found it. — L'Es- 

TRANGE. 



A THOUGHT-LOOK. 193 

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S LAST WORDS. 
After long * and severe suffering from 
the wound he had received, finding himself 
past all hope of recovery, he prepared for 
death with the greatest composure, and as- 
sembled the clergymen of divers nations, 
who were there, he made a full confession 
of his Christian faith. The closing scene 
of his life was the parting with his brother, 
Sir Robert Sidney, of whom he took leave 
in these words: "Love my memory, cher- 
ish my friends ; their faith to me may assure 
you they are sincere : but above all. govern 
your will and affections by the will and 
word of your Creator ; in me beholding 
the end of the world, and all her vanities." 
— Sir Fulk Greville. 

SLANDER. 

1. Slander is a secret propensity of the 

mind to think ill of all men, and after- 



* He was wounded on the 22d September, 1585, at 
Zutphen, in the Netherlands, and died the 17th Octo- 
ber following, at Arnheim. — Ed. 
13 



194 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

wards to utter such sentiments in scanda- 
lous expressions. — Theophrastus. 

2. If any one speak ill of thee, consider 
whether he hath truth on his side ; and if 
so, reform thyself, that his censures may 
not affect thee. — Epictetus. 

3. As for those terrible names of secta- 
ries and schismatics, which ye have got 
together, we know your manner of fight; 
when the quiver of your arguments, which 
is ever thin and weakly stored, after the 
first brunt is quite empty, your course is to 
betake ye to your other quiver of slander, 
wherein lies your best archery. And whom 
you could not move by sophistical arguing, 
then you think to confute by scandalous 
misnaming ; thereby inciting the blinder 
sort of people to mislike and deride sound 
doctrine and good Christianity, under two 
or three vile and hateful terms. — Milton. 

4. We ought not to be dejected by the 
slanders and calumnies of bad men ; be- 
cause our integrity will be declared by Him 
who cannot err in judgment. — Nelson. 

5. As by flattery a man opens his bosom 
to his mortal enemy ; so by detraction and 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 195 

slander, he shuts the same to his best 
friends. — Dr. South. 

SLOTH. 

1. The very soul of the slothful does 
effectually but lie drowsing in his body, 
and the whole man is totally given up to 
his senses. — L'Estrange. 

2. Sloth is an inlet to disorder, and 
makes way for licentiousness. People that 
have nothing to do, are quickly tired of 
their own company. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. Excess is not the only thing which 
breaks men in their health, and in the com- 
fortable enjoyment of themselves ; but many 
are brought into a very ill and languishing 
habit of body, by mere sloth ; and sloth is 
in itself both a great sin, and the cause of 
many more. — Dr. South. 

SLOVENLINESS. 
Slovenliness is a lazy and beastly negli- 
gence of a man's own person, whereby he 
becomes so sordid as to be offensive to 
those about him. — Theophrastus. 



196 A THOUGHT-LOOK. 



SLUGGISHNESS. 
It is of great moment to teach the mind 
to shake off its sluggishness, and vigorously 
employ itself about what Reason shall di- 
rect. — Locke. 

SLUMBER. 
From carelessness it will fall into slum- 
ber, and from a slumber it will settle into a 
deep and long sleep ; till at last, perhaps, 
it will sleep itself into a lethargy, and that 
such one, that nothing but Hell and Judg- 
ment can awake it. — Dr. South. 

SMILES. 
1. Sweet intercourse 

Of looks and smiles ; for smiles from 

reason flow, 

To brute denied, and are of love the 

food. — Milton. 

2. Of all the appearances of the human 

countenance, methinks a smile is the most 

extraordinary. It plays with a surprizing 

agreeableness in the eye, breaks out with 

the brightest distinction, and sits like a 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 197 

glory upon the countenance. What sun is 
there within us, that shoots his rays with 
so sudden a vigor? To see the soul flash 
in the face at this rate, one would think 
would convert an atheist. By the way, 
we may observe that smiles are much more 
becoming than frowns. This seems a natu- 
ral encouragement to good humor ; as much 
as to say, if people have a mind to be hand- 
some, they must not be peevish and un- 
toward. — Jeremy Collier. 

SOLITUDE. 

1. He that is pleased with solitude must 
be either a wild beast or a god. — Aris- 
totle. 

2. Eagles fly alone, and they are but 
sheep which always herd together. — Sir 
Philip Sidney. 

3. The Solitude of a youth of genius 
has a local influence ; it is full of his own 
creations of his unmarked passions, and his 
uncertain thoughts. The titles which he 
gives his favorite haunts, often intimate the 
bent of his mind — its employment or its 
purpose ; as Petrarch called his retreat Lin- 



19S A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

tenium, after that of his hero Scipio ; and 
a young poet, from some favorite descrip- 
tion in Cowley, called a spot he loved to 
muse in "Cowley's walk." — D'Israeli. 

4. Solitude is a good school, but the 
world is the best theatre ; the institution is 
best there, but the practice here ; the wil- 
derness hath the advantage of discipline, 
and society opportunities of perfection. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

5. It had been hard to have put more 
truth and untruth together, in a few words, 
than in that speech, " Whosoever is de- 
lighted with solitude, is either a wild beast 
or a god." — Lord Bacox. 

6. Such only can enjoy the country, 
who are capable of thinking when they are 
there : then they are prepared for solitude, 
and in that, solitude is prepared for them. — 
Dryden. 

7. You subject yourself to solitude : the 
sly enemy that doth separate a man from 
well doing. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

SOUL AND BODY. 
If one had nothing but a soul to keep, 
he need not go to service to maintain it. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 199 

But a body is a very indigent sort of a 
thing, it cannot subsist upon its own growth, 
but stands in want of continual supplies. 
This circumstance of eating and drinking, 
is a cruel check upon many a man's digni- 
ties, and makes him hold his life by a very 
servile tenure. — Jeremy Collier. 

SPIRITUAL LEARNING. 

Of spiritual learning I may say, that the 
secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven are not 
truly and thoroughly understood, but by 
the Sons of the Kingdom; and by them in 
several degrees and to various purposes. 
But to evil persons the whole system of this 
wisdom is insipid and flat ; dull as the foot 
of a rock, and unlearned as are the elements 
of our mother tongue. But so are mathe- 
matics to a Scythian* boor and music to a 
camel. — Jeremy Taylor. 



* The learned Prelate probably alludes to the ancient 
proverb Anacharsis inter Scythos, meaning a scarce per- 
son, Anacharsis being the only philosopher on record, 
who was a native of that rude country. — Ed. 



200 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



SUBLIMITY. 

1. In respect of God's incomprehensible 
sublimity and purity, this is also true, that 
God is neither a mind nor a spirit like other 
spirits, nor a light such as can be seen. — 
Sir W alter Raleigu. 

2. Of all the descriptions I ever read, 
there is no one that seems to me so awful 
and so tremendous, as the descent of God 
upon Mount Horeb and the amazing phce- 
nomena that attended it. The pomp pre- 
tended to by Pagan deities, when set off by 
the grandeur of Poetry and the magic of 
numbers, is uncouth, ridiculous and pro- 
fane. The procession of Bacchus as de- 
scribed by Ovid (lib. iii.) is neither more 
nor less than a downright drunken riot, or 
the brutal pastime of a disorderly country 
wake. The boisterous expedition of Nep- 
tune, even as painted by the great master 
Homer (Iliad xiii.) represents nothing more 
august than the roaring of London bridge, 
or a rabble of sea monsters frisking in a 
storm. Nay, that famous speech of Jupiter 
(Iliad xviii.) where he maintains his super- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 201 

eminence by shaking Olympus with his 
imperial nod, and menacing his refractory 
offspring, in case they should rebel, though 
it certainly is embellished with the ut- 
most force of words and stretch of art, is, 
at the best, but a lame and imperfect copy, 
in the main strokes of it. from the native 
majesty of the unlabored prose of the nine- 
teenth chapter of Exodus. It must be ad- 
mitted, however, that our English Poet 
Milton has, in several places, described the 
usual display of the Divine Majesty in a 
very magnificent manner : 

" Clouds began 
To darken all the hill, and smoak to roll 
In dusky wreathes, reluctant flames, the sight 
Of wrath awak'd : nor with less dread the loud 
Etherial trumpet from on high 'gan blow, 
At which command the powers militant, 
That stood for Heav'n, in mighty quadrate join'd 
Of union irresistible, mov'd on 
In silence their bright legions, to the sound 
Of instrumental harmony." 

Again, 

" He on his impious foes right onward drove 
Gloomy as night : under his burning wheels 
The stedfast Empyrean shoots throughout, 
All but the throne of God." 



202 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

And again, 

" He ended, and the sun gave signal high 
To the bright minister that watch 'd ; he blew 
His trumpet, heard on Oreb, since perhaps 
When God descended, and perhaps once more 
To sound the general doom." 

Par. Lost. Lib. vi. and xi. 
Stackhouse. 

SUCCESS. 

1. Success produces confidence, confi- 
dence relaxes industry, and negligence 
ruins that reputation which accuracy had 
raised. — Dr. Johnson. 

2. He that would relish success to a good 
purpose, should keep his passions cool, and 
his expectations low ; and then, it is possi- 
ble that his fortune might exceed his fancy ; 
for an advantage always rises by surprise, 
and is almost always doubled by being un- 
looked for. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. An opinion in the success of a work, 
is as necessary to found a purpose of under- 
taking it, as the authority of commands or 
the persuasiveness of promises. — Dr. Ham- 
mond. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 203 

SUDDEN DEATH. 
Since God hath not told us we shall not 
die suddenly, is it not certain he intended we 
should prepare for sudden death, as well as 
against death clothed in any other circum- 
stances? Fabius Pictor was choked with 
a hair in a mess of milk, Anacreon with a 
raisin, Cardinal Colonna with figs crusted 
with ice, Adrian the Fourth with a fly, Dru- 
sus Pompeius with a pear, Domitius Afer, 
Quintilianus' tutor, with a full cup, Casimir 
the Second, king of Polonia, with a little 
draught of wine, Amurath with a full gob- 
let, Tarquinius Priscus with a fish-bone. 
For as soon as a man is born, that which 
in nature only remains to him, is to die ; 
and if we differ in the way or time of our 
abode, or the manner of our exit, yet we 
are even at last : and since it is not deter- 
mined by a natural cause, which way we 
shall go, or at what age ; a wise man will 
suppose himself always upon his death-bed ; 
and such supposition is like making his 
Will ; he is not nearer death for making 
it, but he is the readier for it when it 
comes. 



204 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

Saint Jerome said well : " He deserves 
not the name of a Christian, who will live 
in that state of life in which he would not 
die : " and indeed it is a great venture to 
be in an evil state of life ; because every 
minute of it hath a danger. And therefore 
a succession of actions, in every one of 
which he may as well perish as escape, is a 
boldness that hath no mixture of wisdom or 
probable venture. How many persons have 
died in the midst of an act of sport, or at a 
merry meeting ? Grimcaldus, a Lombard 
king, died with shooting a pigeon ; Thales, 
the Miletian, in the theatre; Lucia, the sister 
of Aurelius the Emperor, playing with her 
little son, was wounded in the breast with 
a needle, and died. Benno, Bishop of Adel- 
berg, with great ceremony and joy conse- 
crating St. Michael's church, was crowded 
to death by the people ; so was the Duke 
of Saxony at the inauguration of* Albert 
I. The great lawyer f Baldus, playing 
with a little dog, was bitten upon the lip, 
instantly grew mad and perished. Charles 

# Cranzius, Lib. iii. Cap. 51. 
| Matthiolus, in Dioscorides. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 205 

the eighth of France, seeing certain men 
play at tennis-court, swooned and recovered 
not. Henry the Second was killed running 
. at tilt ; Ludoyjco Borgia with riding the 
great horse : and the old Syracusan Archi- 
medes was slain by a rude soldier, as he 
was making diagrams in the sand, which 
was his greatest pleasure. How many 
men have died laughing, or in the ecstasies 
of a great joy?* Phillipides the come- 
dian, and Dyonisius the tyrant of Sicily, 
died with joy at the news of a victory, j" 
Diagorus of Rhodes, and Chilon the phi- 
losopher, expired in the embraces of their 
sons, crowned with an Olympic laurel. J 
Polycrita Maxia, being saluted the sa- 
viouress of her country ; Marcus Jovius, 
when the Senate decreed him honors ; the 
Emperor § Conrad the Second, when he 
triumphed after the Conquest of Italy, had 
a joy bigger than their heart, and their 
fancy swelled it till they burst and died. 

* Plin. Lib. vii. cap. 53. 

f Cicero. Tusc. quaest. i. 

% Pixt. et Gell. de illust. niulier. 

§ CuSPDflAN. 



206 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

Death can enter in at any door ; Philis- 
tion of Nice, died with excessive laughter ; 
so did the poet Philemon, being provoked 
to it only by seeing an ass eat figs. And 
the number of persons who have been 
found suddenly dead in their beds is so 
great, that it engages many to a more cer- 
tain and regular devotion for their compline, 
so it were well it were pursued to the ut- 
most intention of God ! that is, that all the 
parts of religion should, with zeal and assi- 
duity, be entertained and finished, that, as 
it becomes wise men, we never be surprised 
with that which we are sure will some time 
or other happen. A great general in Italy, 
at the sudden death of Alphonzo of Fer- 
rara, and Ludovico Corbinelli, at the sight 
of the sad accident upon Henry II. of 
France, before mentioned, turned religious, 
and did what God intended in those deaths. 
It concerns us to be curious of single ac- 
tions, because even in those shorter periods 
we may expire and find our graves. But 
if the state of life be contradictory to our 
hopes of Heaven, it is like affronting a 
cannon before a beleaguered town a month 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 207 

together. It is a contempt of safety, and a 
rendering all reason useless and unprofitable. 
But he only is wise, who, having made 
death familiar to him by expectation and 
daily apprehension, does at all instants go 
forth to meet it. The wise virgins went 
forth to meet the bridegroom, for they were 
ready. Excellent, therefore, is the advice 
of the son of Sirach,* " use physic or ever 
thou be sick ; before judgment examine 
thyself, and in the day of visitation thou 
shalt find mercy. Humble thyself before 
thou be sick, and in the time of sins show 
repentance ; let nothing hinder thee to pay 
thy vows in due time, and defer not until 
death to be justified." — Jeremy Taylor. 

SUPERSTITION. 

There is superstition in shunning super- 
stition, and he that disdains to follow Reli- 
gion in the open and trodden path, may 
chance to lose his way in the trackless 
wilds of experiment, or in the obscure laby- 
rinths of speculation. — Lord Bacon. 

* Ecclus. xviii. 19, et seq. 



20S A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

SUSPICION. 

1. Suspicion disposes kings to tyranny 
and husbands to jealousy. — Lord Bacon. 

2. Suspicions among thoughts are like 
bats amongst birds — they ever fly to twi- 
light : they are to be repressed, or, at least, 
well guarded, for they cloud the mind. — 
Ibid. 

SWEARING. 

1. Of all men, a philosopher should be 
no swearer : for an oath, which is the end 
of controversies in law, cannot determine 
any here, where reason only must induce. 
— Sir Thomas Browne. 

2. Take not His name, who made thy 

tongue, in vain; 
It gets thee nothing, and hath no 
excuse. 
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, 

TALENTS MISPLACED. 
Vainly is wit lavished upon fugitive top- 
ics ; little can Architecture secure duration 
if the ground is false. — Dr. Johnson. 






A THOUGHT-BOOK. '209 

TALK. 

1. How cometh it to pass, that Ceesar's 
and Cicero's talk is so natural and plain, 
and Sallust's writing so artificial and dark, 
when all three lived at one time ? I will 
freely tell you my fancy herein. Surely 
Caesar and Cicero, beside a singular prerog- 
ative of natural eloquence given unto them 
by God : both two, by use of life, were 
daily orators among the common people, 
and greatest counsellors in the Senate- 
house ; and therefore gave themselves to 
use such speeches as the meanest should 
well understand, and the wisest best allow : 
following carefully that good counsel of 
Aristotle, Loqaendiim ad multi, sapiendum 
ut paaci. — Roger Ascham. 

2. It is a difficult thing to talk to the 
purpose, and to put life and perspicuity into 
our discourses. — Jeremy Collier. 

TEMPERANCE. 

1. Beware of such food as persuades a 
man, though he be not hungry, to eat them ; 
and those liquors that will prevail with a man 
14 



210 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

to drink them, when he is not thirsty. — 
Socrates. 

2. Make Temperance thy companion, 
so shall health sit on thy brow. — Dodsley. 

3. Observe 
The rule of not too much ; by tem- 
perance taught 

In what thou eat'st and drinlrst : seek- 
ing from thence 

Due nourishment, not gluttonous de- 
light. — Milton. 

4. Temperance, that virtue without 
pride and fortune without envy, gives 
health of body and tranquillity of mind ; 
the best guardian of youth and support of 
old age. — Sir William Temple. 

5. Temperance keeps the senses clear 
and unembarrassed, and makes them seize 
the object with more keenness and satisfac- 
tion. It appears with life in the face, and 
decorum in the person ; it gives you the 
command of your head, secures your health 
and preserves you in a condition for busi- 
ness. — Jeremy Collier. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 211 

TEMPLES TO THE DEITY. 

1. ;: The Heaven is my throne and the 
earth is my footstool, where is the house 
that ye build unto me ? " # All civilized 
nations dwell in houses: thence the idea 
naturally arose in the minds of men to build 
a House for God, in which they can adore 
Him and seek Him, both in their fears and 
in their hopes. Nothing, indeed, can be 
more consoling to the hearts of men, than 
to assemble in one place, where they all, 
with one accord, give utterance to those 
supplications which their wants and a sense 
of their weakness dictate. — De Montes- 
quieu. 

2. God has created me, God is within 
me, I carry him about every where. Shall 
I defile him with obscene thoughts, unjust 
actions, or infamous desires ? My duty is 
to thank God for every thing, to praise him 
for every thing, and to thank, praise and 
serve him continually while I have life. — 
Epictetus. 

# Isaiah Lxvi. 1. 



212 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

3. " Know ye not that ye are the Tem- 
ple of God, and that the spirit of God 
dwelleth in you." # — St. Paul. 

4. Most sacrilegious murther hath broke 

ope 
The Lord's anointed Temple, and 

stole thence 
The life o' th' Building. 

Shakspeare. 

TEMPORAL ENDS. 
Call not every temporal end a defiling 
of the intention, but only when it contra- 
dicts the ends of God, or when it is princi- 
pally intended ; for sometimes a temporal 
end is part of our duty ; and such are all 
the actions of our calling. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

THE NUMBER TEN. 
Ten has been extolled as containing 
even, odd, long and plain, quadrate and 
cubical numbers ; and Aristotle observed, 
that Barbarians as well as Greeks used a 
numeration unto ten. — Sir Thomas Brown. 

* 1 Cor. iii. 16. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 213 



THOUGHT. 

1. Thought, if translated truly, cannot 
be lost in another language ; but the words 
that convey it to our apprehension, which 
are the image and ornament of that thought, 
may be so ill chosen as to make it appear 
unhandsome. — Dryden. 

2. One may often find as much thought 
on the reverse of a medal as in a canto of 
Spenser. — Addison. 

TIME. 

1. Time is like a river, in which metals 
and solid substances are sunk, while chaff 
and straws swim upon the surface. — Lord 
Bacon. 

2. Time, which consisteth of parts, can 
be no part of infinite duration or of eter- 
nity ; for then there would be an infinite 
time past to-day, which to-morrow would 
be more than infinite. Time is one thing, 
and infinite duration is another. — Grew. 

3. This consideration of duration, as set 
out by certain periods, and marked by cer- 
tain measures or epochs, is that which most 
properly we call Time. — Locke. 



214 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

4. We may gain the idea of Time, or 
duration, by reflecting on that train of 
thoughts which succeed one another in our 
minds. That for this reason, when we 
sleep soundly without dreaming, we have 
no perception of time or of the length of 
it whilst we sleep ; and that the moment 
wherein we leave off to think till the mo- 
ment we begin to think again, seems to 
have no distance. And so I doubt not but 
it would be to a waking man, if it were 
possible for him to keep only one idea in 
his mind without variation and the succes- 
sion of others: and we see that one who 
fixes his thoughts very intently on one 
thing, so as to take but little notice of the 
succession of ideas that pass in his mind 
whilst he is taken up with that earnest con- 
templation, lets slip out of his account a 
good part of that duration, and thinks that 
time shorter than it is. — Ibid. 

5. The answer to one who asked, What 
is Time ? was, si non rogas intelligo ; that 
is, the more I think of Time the less I un- 
derstand it, might persuade one that Time 
which reveals all other things, is itself not 
to be discovered. — Ibid. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 215 

6. It is possible that some creatures may 
think half an hour as long as a thousand 
years ; or look upon that space of duration, 
which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, 
a month, or a whole age. — Pere Male- 

BRANCHE. 

TIMIDITY. 
I confess that I am exceedingly timo- 
rous ; for I dare not do an evil thing. — 
Xenophanes. 

TITLES. 
1. As Virtue is the most reasonable and 
genuine source of Honor, we expect to find 
in titles an intimation of some particular 
merit that should recommend men to the 
high stations which they possess. Holi- 
ness is ascribed to the Pope ; Majesty to 
Kings ; Serenity, or mildness of temper, to 
Princes ; Excellence, or perfection, to Am- 
bassadors ; Grace to Archbishops ; Honor 
to Peers ; Worship, or venerable behavior, 
to Magistrates ; and Reverence, which is 
of the same import as the former, to the 
inferior Clergy. The death-bed shows the 



216 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

emptiness of titles in a true light. A poor 
dispirited sinner lies trembling under the 
apprehensions of the state he is entering 
on ; and is asked by a grave attendant how 
his Holiness does? Another hears himself 
addressed under the title of Highness or 
Excellency, who lies under such mean cir- 
cumstances of mortality, as appear almost a 
disgrace to human nature. Titles, at such 
a time, look rather like insults and mockery 
than respect. The truth is, Honors are 
not, in this world, under sufficient regula- 
tion ; true quality is frequently neglected, 
virtue oppressed, and vice triumphant. The 
last Day will rectify this disaster, and assign 
to every one a station suitable to the dig- 
nity of his character ; ranks will then be 
adjusted, and precedency set right. — Addi- 
son. 
2. Man over men 

He made not Lord : such title to himself 
Reserving. — Milton. 

TRANSMIGRATION OF SCIENCE. 
I cannot better compare the transmigra- 
tions of science and art, than to the circu- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 217 

lation of the blood : and I foresee that they 
Avill one time or another forsake England, 
France and Germany, and settle among us, 
for many ages, to return into Greece, their 
first abode. — Peter the Great. 



TRANSLATION. 

1. Whosoever wishes to translate a work 
faithfully, must avoid rendering it literally, 
and must not be tied down by the too 
anxious study to adhere to the precise word- 
ing of the original. He should, on the 
contrary, seize upon the precise meaning of 
entire sentences, and then render that mean- 
ing in such phrases as are most in accord- 
ance with the idiom and genius of the 
language in which he is writing. — Mai- 

MONIDES. 

2. No translation our own country ever 
yet produced, hath come up to that of the 
Old and New Testament; and I am per- 
suaded that the translators of the Bible 
were masters of an English style, much 
fitter for that work, than any we see in our 
present writings : the which is owing to 
the simplicity that runs through the whole. 
— Ibid. 



218 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

t 

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 

1. How is a Romanist prepared easily to 
swallow, not only against all probability, 
but even the clear evidence of his senses, 
the doctrine of transubstantiation ? — Locke. 

2. The substance of the body of Christ 
was not every where seen, nor did it every 
where suffer death ; every where it could 
not be entombed ; it is not every where 
now, being exalted into Heaven. — Dr. 
Hooker. 

3. Consubstantiation,* and above all 
the Papistical doctrine of transubstantiation, 
or rather anthropophagy, for it deserves no 
better name, are irreconcileable, not only 
with reason and common sense, and the 
habits of mankind, but with the testimony 
of Scripture, with the nature and end of a 
Sacrament, with the analogy of baptism, 
with the ordinary forms of language, with 
the human nature of Christ, and, finally, 
with the state of glory in which he is to 
remain till the day of Judgment. — Milton. 

# The Lutherans hold consubstantiation ; an error 
indeed, but not mortal. — J. M. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 219 

TRAVEL. 

1. Travel, in the younger sort, is a part 
of education ; in the elder, a part of expe- 
rience. — Lord Bacon. 

2. He that travelleth a country before 
he hath some entry into the language, 
goeth to school, and not to travel. — Ibid. 

3. In those vernal seasons of the year, 
when the air is calm and pleasant, it were 
an injury and sullenness against nature, not 
to go out and see her riches, and partake in 
her rejoicings with heaven and earth. I 
should not therefore be a persuader to them * 
of studying much then, after two or three 
years that they have laid their grounds, but 
to ride out in companies with prudent and 
staid guides, to all quarters of the land, 
learning and observing all places of strength, 
all commodities of building and of soil for 
towns and tillage, harbors and ports for 
trade ; sometimes taking sea as far as to our 
navy, to learn there also what they can on 
the practical knowledge of sailing and of 
sea fight. These \tays would try all their 

* His pupils. 



220 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

peculiar gifts of nature ; and if there were 
any secret excellence among them, would 
fetch it out, and give it fair opportunities 
to advance itself by, which could not but 
mightily redound to the good of the nation, 
and bring into fashion again those old ad- 
mired virtues and excellencies, with far 
more advantage, now in this purity of 
Christian knowledge. But if they desire 
to see other countries at three or four and 
twenty years of age, not to learn principles, 
but to enlarge experience, and to make 
wise observations, they will, by that time, 
be such as shall deserve the regard and 
honor of all men where they pass, and the 
society and friendship of those in all places, 
who are best and most eminent ; and, per- 
haps, then other nations will be glad to 
visit us for their breeding, or else to imitate 
us in their own country. — Milton. 

4. Cicero did not set out on his travels 
until he had completed his education at 
home ; and after he had acquired, in his 
own country, whatever was proper to form 
a worthy citizen and magistrate of Rome, 
he was confirmed by a maturity of age and 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 221 

reason, against the impressions of vice. In 
a tour the most delightful of the world, he 
saw every thing that could entertain a cu- 
rious traveller ; yet stayed nowhere any 
longer than his benefit, not his pleasure, 
detained him. By his previous knowledge 
of the laws of Rome, he was able to com- 
pare them with those of other cities, and 
to bring back with him whatever he found 
useful, either to his country or himself. 
He was lodged wherever he came, in the 
houses of the great and eminent, not so 
much for their birth and wealth, as for their 
virtue, knowledge and learning. These 
he made the constant companions of his 
travels. It is therefore no wonder that he 
brought back every accomplishment that 
could improve and adorn a man of sense. — 
Dr. Conyers Middletox. 

5. I am of opinion that Travels belong 
to History and not to Romance. I have, 
therefore, not described countries as more 
beautiful than they appeared to me ; I have 
not represented their inhabitants more vir- 
tuous nor more wicked than I found them. 
— Count de Volney. 



222 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

6. It is not uncommon to meet with 
travellers, who are ignorant of many things 
in their oivn country, with which they 
might be acquainted without difficulty. 
The French are remarkable for this defect, 
and the English are far from being exempt 
from it. Too many of our countrymen, 
who go abroad, are unacquainted, not only 
with places remote from that in which 
they were born or educated, but with many 
things, to which they had it in their power 
to be familiarized from their infancy. An 
Englishman once discovered very great 
surprise, when he was informed at Rome, 
that the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, 
in London, was one of the most elegant 
specimens of modern architecture. Such 
ignorance exposes the traveller to the ridi- 
cule, and, perhaps, contempt of intelligent 
foreigners ; and may induce him to express 
his admiration even of inferior productions 
abroad, where he may be informed that 
finer specimens of art are to be seen in his 
own country. — Henry Kett. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 223 



TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. 

1. Much of the success to be derived 
from travel, depends on the choice of the 
tutor or Travelling Companion. He should 
be a grave respectable man. of a mature 
age. A very young man, or a man of levity, 
however great his merit, learning or ingenui- 
ty, will not be proper ; because he will not 
have that natural authority and personal 
dignity, that will command attention and 
obedience. A grave and good man will 
watch over the morals and religion of his 
pupil ; both of which are, according to the 
present # mode of conducting travel, com- 
monly shaken from the basis, and levelled 
with the dust, before the end of the pere- 
grination. A tutor of character and princi- 
ple will resolve to bring his pupil home, if 
it be possible, not worse in any respect 
than he was on his departure. — Dr. Vices- 
imus Kxox. 

2. It is vainly expected by parents, that 
the authority of a travelling tutor will be 

* About 1794. 



224 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

sufficient to prevent the indiscretion of their 
son, and confine his attention to the proper 
objects of improvement, but admitting every 
tutor to be a Mentor, every pupil may not 
be a Telemachus. — Henry Kett. 

3. In your travels, these documents I 
will give you, not as mine, but his* prac- 
tices. Seek the knowledge of the estate 
of every prince, court and city that you 
pass through. Address yourself to the 
company to learn this of the elder sort, and 
yet neglect not the younger. By the one 
you will gather learning, wisdom and 
knowledge: by the other acquaintance, 
languages and exercise. This he effectu- 
ally observed, with great gain of under- 
standing. — Sir Henry Sidney. 

TRIUNITY OF JUSTICE. 
By a threefold justice the world has been 
governed from the beginning : by a justice 
Natural, by which the parents and elders 
of families governed their children ; in 
which the obedience was called natural 

* His brother, the accomplished Sir Philip Sidney. — 
Ed. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 225 

piety. Again by a justice Divine, drawn 
from the laws of God ; and the obedience 
was called conscience : and lastly, by a 
justice Civil, begotten by both the former: 
and the obedience to which we call duty. — 
Sir Walter Raleigh. 

TKIUXITIES OF POETRY. 

The three excellencies of Poetry, are 
simplicity of language, simplicity of sub- 
ject, and simplicity of invention. 

The three indispensable purities of Poe- 
try, are pure truth, pure language, and pure 
manners. 

Three things must be avoided in Poetry, 
the frivolous, the obscure, and the superflu- 
ous. 

Three things all Poetry should be ; thor- 
oughly erudite, thoroughly animated, and 
thoroughly natural. 

The three primary requisites of poetic 
Genius, are an eye that can see nature, a 
heart that can feel nature, and a resolution 
that dares follow nature. 

The three things that constitute a Poet : 
genius, knowledge and impulse. 

15 



226 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

The three foundations of Genius, the 
gift of God, man's exertion, and the events 
of life. 

The three indispensables of Genius, are 
understanding, feeling and perseverance. 

The three things that enrich Genius, 
are contentment of mind, the cherishing of 
good thoughts, and exercising the memory. 

SoUTHET. 

TRUE COURAGE. 
True courage is the result of reasoning. 
A brave mind is always impregnable. Reso- 
lution lies more in the head than in the 
veins, and a just sense of honor and of in- 
famy, of duty and of religion, will carry 
us further than all the force of mechanism. 
— Jeremy Collier. 

TRUE RICHES. 
The man that would be truly rich, must 
not increase his fortune, but retrench his 
desires. — Seneca. 

TRUE MORALITY. 
In morality there are books enough writ 
both by ancient and modern philosophers ; 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 227 

but the morality of the Gospel doth so ex- 
ceed them all, that to give a man a full 
knowledge of true morality, I shall send 
him to no other book than the New Testa- 
ment. — Locke. 

TRUTH. 

1. Truth is the offspring of unbroken 
meditations, and of thoughts often revised 
and corrected. — Wollaston. 

2. Truth is the band of union and the 
basis of human happiness. Without this 
virtue there is no reliance upon language, 
no confidence in friendship, no security in 
promises and oaths. — Jeremy Collier. 

3. Truth is the joining or separating of 
signs, as the things signified agree or disa- 
gree. — Locke. 

4. The precipitancy of disputation, and 
the stir and noise of passions that usually 
attend it, must needs be prejudicial to 
Truth ; for its calm insinuations can no 
more be heard in such a bustle, than a 
whistle among a crowd of sailors in a storm. 
— Glanville. 



228 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

TUITION. 

1. When so much of true life is put into 
them, freely talk with them about what 
most delights them ; that they may perceive 
that those under whose tuition they are, are 
not enemies to their satisfaction. — Locke. 

2. No science is speedily learned by 
the noblest genius without tuition. — Dr. 
Watts. 

TULLY AND TILLOTSON, ON THE IMMORTAL- 
ITY OF THE SOUL. 
TitllYj the chief Philosopher among the 
Romans, expresseth himself with a good 
degree of confidence, on the Immortality of 
the soul. He argues for it in several parts 
of his works, but particularly in his book 
de Senectute, he declares his own opinion 
of it, where, speaking to Scipio andLselius, 
he says, u I do not see why I may not ad- 
venture to declare free to you, what my 
thoughts are concerning Death ; and per- 
haps I may discern better than others, 
what it is, because I am now, by reason of 
my age, not far from it. I believe," says 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 229 

he, " that the Fathers, those eminent per- 
sons and my particular friends, are still 
alive, and that they live the life which only 
deserves the name of life." And after- 
ward, " Nee me solum ratio ac dispntatio 
impulit ut ita crederem, sed nobilitas etiam 
summorum philosophorum et authoritas /" 
" nor has reason only and disputation 
brought me to this belief, but the famous 
judgment and authority of the chief Phi- 
losophers." And having mentioned Pytha- 
goras, Socrates and Plato, he breaks out 
into this rapture, " Oh prceclarum diem 
quum in Mud animorum concilium ccetum- 
que proficiscar et cam ex hdc turba et collu- 
vione discedam!" " Oh glorious day, 
when I shall go unto the great council and 
assembly of spirits, when I shall go out of 
this tumult and confusion, and quit the sink 
of this world, when I shall be gathered to 
all those brave spirits, who have left this 
world, and meet with Cato, the greatest 
and best of mankind ! " What could a 
Christian almost say with more estasy ? 
And he concludes, " Quod si in hoc erro, 
quod animos hominum immortales esse 



230 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

credam, libent e?To, nee mihi hnnc errorem 
quo deleclor, dum vivo, extorqueri volo : sin 
mortuus, ut quidam ruinuti philosophi cen- 
sent, nihil sentiam non vereor ne hunc er- 
rorem meum mortui philosophi irrideant" 
" But if after all I am mistaken herein, I 
am well pleased with my error, which I 
would not willingly part with whilst I live : 
and if, after my death, as some little phi- 
losophers suppose, I shall be deprived of all 
sense, I have no fear of being exposed and 
laughed at by them, for this, my mistake, 
in the other world." 

Thus you see what assurance the hea- 
thens had of this principle, and that there 
was a general inclination and propension 
in them to the belief of it ; and as it was 
not firmly and upon good grounds believed 
among the common people, so neither was 
it doubted of or called in question among 
them. Among the philosophers it was a 
matter of great uncertainty, being stiffly 
denied by some, doubted of by others ; and 
those who were most inclinable to the 
entertainment of it, do rather express their 
desires and hopes of it, than their full as- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 231 

surance concerning it. — Archbishop Til- 
lotson. 

TYRANNY. 

1. Power, unless managed with gentle- 
ness and discretion, does but make a man 
the more hated. No intervals of good hu- 
mor, no starts of bounty will atone for ty- 
ranny and oppression. — Jeremy Collier. 

2. It is strange to see the unmanlike 
cruelty of mankind, who, not content with 
their tyrannous ambition to have brought 
the others' virtuous patience under them, 
think their masterhood nothing without 
doing injury to them. — Sir Philip Sid- 
ney. 

VANITY. 
1. Our great ethic fabler, Gay, in his ad- 
mirable exposition in "the man and the 
flea" that " every thing alive is vain," 
asks, 

i ' Does not the hawk all fowls survey 
As destined only for his prey ? 
And do not tyrants, prouder things, 
Think men were born as slaves to kings ? " 



232 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

And in a manner worthy of the best pe- 
riods of ancient or modern literature, our 
British Jotham admonishes senators, and 
instructs all ; and illustrates a class, by the 
backsliding crab, who, from his hide-bound 
shell exclaims, 

" Nature is too profuse," says he, 

" Who gave all these to pleasure me ! " 

and another, like the slimy all-defiling snail, 

" When bord'ring pinks and roses bloom 
And every garden breathes perfume, 
When peaches glow with sunny dyes, 
Like Laura's cheek, when blushes rise," etc. 

" The snail looks round on flower and tree, 
And cries, All these were made for me." 

As one of those human snails, that crawl 
in and beslime the fairest fruits whilst yet 
unripe, and poison the fairest blossoms, 
even in the bud, whispered in the ear of a 
" Royal imp of fame," at a Drawing room, 
whereat the proud and virtuous matrons of 
the British Court, were presenting their 
young and beauteous daughters, on their 
entering the world of distinction, to their 
Sovereign's dueen ; an observation not un- 
like that of the reptile in the fable, but not 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 233 

quite so selfish, for the human reptile used 
the personal pronoun, dualiter. 

The British fabler then, soaring above 
animal nature, reproves e'en 

" Man, the most conceited creature, 
As from a cliff he cast his eyes 
And viewed the seas and arched skies ; 
The sun was sunk beneath the main ; 
The moon and all the -starry train 
Hang the vast vault of Heav'n. The man 
His contemplation thus began. 
When I behold this glorious show, 
And the wide watery world below, 
The scaly people of the main, 
The beasts that range the wood or plain, 
The wing'd inhabitants of air, 
The day, the night, the various year, 
And know all these, by Heav'n designed 
As gifts to pleasure human kind, 
I cannot raise my worth too high, 
Of what vast consequence am I? 

Not of th' importance you suppose, 
Exclaims a Flea upon his nose : 
Be humble, learn thyself to scan, 
Know, pride was never made for man, 
'Tis vanity that swells thy mind. 
What f Heaven and earth for thee design'd? 
For thee! made only for our need 
That more important Fleas might feed.** 

Editor. 



234 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

2. Vanity is rather a mark of humility 
than pride. Vain men delight in telling 
what honors have been done them, what 
great company they have kept, and the 
like ; by which they plainly confess, that 
these honors were more than their due, and 
such as their friends would not believe, if 
they had not been told : whereas, a man 
truly proud, thinks the honors below his 
merit, and scorns to boast. — Swift. 

3. Were it not strange if God should 
have made such a store of glorious creatures 
on earth, and leave them all to be consumed 
in secular vanity, allowing none but the 
baser sort to be employed in his own ser- 
vice. — Hooker. 

4. There is no folly like vain glory, nor 
any thing more ridiculous than for a vain 
man to be always boasting of himself. — 
L'Estrange. 

5. ? Tis an old maxim in the schools, 
That vanity's the food of fools ; 
Yet now and then you men of wit 
Will condescend to take a bit. 

Swift. 

6. Vanity is a strong temptation to lying ; 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 235 

it makes people magnify their merit, over- 
flourish their family, and tell strange stories 
of their interest and acquaintance. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

7. Whether it were out of the same 
vanity which possessed all those learned 
philosophers and poets, that Plato also pub- 
lished, not under the right author's names, 
those things which he had read in the 
Scriptures ; or fearing the severity of the 
Areopagites, and the example of his master 
Socrates, I cannot judge. — Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 

VANITY IN DRESS. 

1. The vanity of loving fine clothes and 
new fashions, and valuing ourselves by 
them, is one of the most childish pieces of 
folly that can be. — Sir Matthew Hale. 

2. No man is esteemed for gay garments, 
but by fools and women. — Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 

3. Some of the manly sex amongst us are 
so effeminate, that they would rather have 
the commonwealth out of order, than their 
hair ; they are more solicitous about trim- 



236 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

ming and sprucing up their heads, than 
they are of their health, or the safety of 
the public ; and are more anxious to be fine 
than virtuous. — Seneca. 

4. For a man to be fantastic and effemi- 
nate in attire, is unpardonable. It is next 
to Sardanapalus's spinning among women. 
To such I would say, Art thou not ashamed, 
when Nature hath made thee a Man, to 
make thyself a woman. — Stob^us. 

5. This is a childish and foolish vice, 
especially in a man, and argues great weak- 
ness and shallowness of judgment. For it 
is here, as in Heraldry, those scutcheons 
and coats of armory that have the most 
colors, are generally the less honorable. 
According to the true and impartial esti- 
mate of things, a great variety and profuse- 
ness of ornaments, are badges of disgrace 
and dishonor, and they proclaim the empti- 
ness and vanity of those that wear them 
and delight in them. Such persons, for 
the most part, are commonly men of no 
worth : herein resembling Tulips, which 
are useless and unprofitable vegetables for 
the life of man. — Dr. John Edwards, 
1698. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 237 

6. Ornaments become vicious, though 
not so in themselves, by being spotted with 
Pride and Vanity, and a Haughty Mind. — 
Ibid. 

VEILED TRUTHS. 
The Jews, by adhering to the letter of 
the Law, Ave re misled into unbelief. And. 
even so, the infidel, resting in the mere 
contemplation of natural' effects, fails to re- 
cognize the great Creative Cause of all. 
The Jews, likewise, thus saw in Christ, a 
mere man, without recognizing the higher 
nature in Him. All are in a veil which 
conceal God — the Christian must recog- 
nize him in all. — Pascal. 

VIRTUE. 

1. Religion, or Virtue, in a large sense, 
includes duty to God and to our neighbor; 
but in a proper sense, Yirtue signifies duty 
towards men, and Religion duty to God. — 
Dr. Isaac Watts. 

2. Virtue is the solid good, which tutors 
should not only read lectures and talk of, 
but the labor and art of education should 



238 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

furnish the mind with and fasten there. — 
Locke. 

VIXEN. 
Vixen, or Fixen, is the name of a she- 
fox : otherwise applied to a woman whose 
nature and condition is thereby compared 
to a she-fox. — Verstegan. 

VOLTAIRE'S LAST WORDS. 
Voltaire was fertile and elegant, his 
observations are very acute, yet he often 
betrays great ignorance, when he treats 
on subjects of ancient learning. Madame 
de Talmond once said to him, " I think, 
Sir, that a philosopher should never write, 
but with the endeavor to render mankind 
less wicked and unhappy than they are. 
Now you do quite the contrary ; you are 
always writing against that Religion which 
alone is able to restrain wickedness, and to 
afford us consolation under misfortunes." 
Voltaire was much struck, and excused 
himself by saying, that he only wrote for 
those who were of the same opinion as 
himself. Tronchin * assured his friends 

# M. Tronchin was one of the most celebrated phy 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 239 

that Yoltaire died in great agonies of mind. 
'•I die forsaken by gods and men,'' ex- 
claimed he, in those awful moments, when 
Truth will force its way. 'I wish," add- 
ed Tronchin, "that those who had been 
perverted by his writings, had been present 
at his death ; it was a sight too horrid to 
support." — William Seward. 

UNNECESSARY CHAINS. 
1. When # Meletius, Bishop of Anti- 
och, visited the dioceses of Syria, and the 
several religious persons famous for severe 
undertakings ; espying that Simeon Stylites 
dwelt upon a pillar, and had bound his leg 



sicians of the eighteenth century. He was born at 
Geneva, maternally related to Lord Bolingbroke, edu- 
cated in England, and patronized by his noble relative. 
He studied at Cambridge, became pupil to Boerhave, 
at Leyden, practised there and in Amsterdam. After 
much travel and practice, he settled in Paris, under the 
patronage of the Duke of Orleans, and became inti- 
mately acquainted with Yoltaire, J. J. Rousseau, Dide- 
rot, Thomas, and other philosophers and men of letters, 
who have amply celebrated in their writings his talents 
and virtues. — Ed. 

* Theod. Hist. Eccles. Lib. i. Ch. 4. 



240 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

thereto, with a strong chain of iron, sent 
for a smith, caused it to be knocked off, 
and said, " to a man that loves God, his 
mind is a sufficient chain." For the loads 
of voluntary austerities rashly undertaken, 
makes religion a burden, when their first 
heats expire ; and their vows which are in- 
tended to secure the practice, and perpetu- 
ate the piety, are but the occasions of an 
aggravated crime ; and the vow does not 
secure the piety, but the weariness and 
satiety of the duty tempts to the breakings 
of the vow, or, at least, makes the man 
impatient when he cannot persist with con- 
tent, nor with safety. — Jeremy Taylor. 

2. We read of a virtuous lady that de- 
sired of St. Athanasius to procure for her, 
out of the number of widows fed from the 
ecclesiastical corban, an old woman, morose, 
peevish and impatient, that she might, by 
the society of so ungentle a person, have 
often occasion to exercise her patience, her 
forgiveness, and her charity. I know not 
how well the counsel succeeded with her; 
I am sure it was not very safe. For to in- 
vite the trouble but to triumph over it, is 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 241 

to wage a war of an uncertain issue, for no 
end but to get the pleasures of the victory, 
which oftentimes do not pay for the trou- 
ble, never for the danger. — Ibid. 

3. An Egyptian, who acknowledged Fire 
for his god, one day doing his devotions 
kissed his god, after the manner of wor- 
shippers, and burnt his lips. It was not in 
the power of that false and imaginary deity 
to care the real hurt done to his devoutest 
worshipper. Just such a fool is he that 
kisses a danger, though with a design of 
virtue, and hugs an opportunity of sin, for 
an advantage of piety. He burns himself 
in the neighborhood of the flame, and 
twenty to one but he may perish in its em- 
braces : and he that looks out a danger, that 
he may overcome it, does as did the Per- 
sian who worshipped the sun, looked upon 
him when he prayed him to cure his weak 
eyes. The sun may as well cure a bad 
eye, or a great burden knit a broken arm, 
as a danger can do him advantage that 
seeks such a combat, which may ruin him ; 
and after which, he rarely may have this 
rewardj that it may be said of him, he had 

16 



242 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

the good fortune not to perish in his folly. 
It is easier to prevent a mischief than to 
cure it, and besides the pain of the wound, 
it is far more full of difficulty to cure a 
broken leg, which a little care and obser- 
vation would have preserved whole. To 
recover from a sin, is none of the easiest 
labors that concern the sons of men ; and 
therefore it concerns them rather not to 
enter into such a narrow strait, from which 
they can never draw back their head, with- 
out leaving their hair and skin and ears 
behind. — Ibid. 

4. If God please to try us, he means us 
no hurt, and he means it with great reason 
and great mercy ; but if we go to try our- 
selves, we may mean well, but not wisely. 
For as it is simply unlawful for weak per- 
sons to seek a temptation, so for the more 
perfect it is dangerous. We have enemies 
enough without, and one of our own with- 
in ; but we become our own tempter, when 
we run out to meet the world, or to invite 
the Devil home, that we may throw holy 
water upon his flames, and call the danger 
nearer, that we may run from it. And cer- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 243 

tainly men are more guilty of many of 
their temptations than the Devil ; through 
their incuriousness or rashness, doing as 
much mischief to themselves as he can. 
For he can but offer, and so much we do, 
when we run into danger. Such were 
those stories of Saint Anthony provoking 
the Devil to battle. If the stories had been 
as true as the actions were rash and ridicu- 
lous, the story had fastened a note of indis- 
cretion on that good man ; though I think 
there is nothing but a mark of fiction and 
falsehood on the writer. — Ibid. 

5. The chain worn by Simeon Stylites, 
the pillar-saint, and his followers, might be 
equally injurious as salutary. The iron in 
itself was neither salutary nor injurious, 
but was one or the other, according to the 
disposition of the wearer. Such ascetics 
should beware of sham holiness, as the 
main point is to draw nigh unto God with 
a sincere humility, that he may draw nigh 
unto thee. They must be on their guard 
against condemning others, should avoid 
arrogance and haughty language, and wear 
the cross, not merely on the surface, but in 



244 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

his inmost soul ; and labor for the benefit 
of others. People of both sexes, learned 
and unlearned, high and low, assemble 
around him. Towards these he must act 
in a right manner, or, in one word, apos- 
tolically. for he must be all things to all 
men, that he may gain all, for the glory of 
God. He must not flatter, lest he injure 
the cause of Truth ; nor be rude to any 
one, that he be not accused of unbecoming 
freedom of speech, but consider himself a 
channel of nothing but of good. — Arch- 
bishop ElJSTATHIUS. 

UNPROFITABLE OCCUPATIONS. 
1. I cannot but think as Aristotle (lib. 
vi.) did of Thales and Anaxagoras, that 
they may be learned, but not wise ; or 
wise, but not prudent, when they are igno- 
rant of such things as are profitable to 
them. For suppose they know the won- 
ders of nature, and the subtleties of meta- 
physics, and operations mathematical, yet 
they cannot be prudent, who spend them- 
selves wholly upon unprofitable and inef- 
fective contemplations. — Jeremy Taylor. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 245 

2. On the celebrated dispute between 
Dr. Bentley, then master of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, and Dr. Hare, Bishop of 
Chichester, concerning the metres of Te- 
rence, Sir Isaac Newton observed that 
"two dignified Clergymen, instead of mind- 
ing their duty, had fallen out about a play- 
book." — Cumberland. 

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
Contemplate three things, and thou wilt 
avoid sin. Know whence thou comest, 
whither thou goest, and before whom thou 
art hereafter to render a responsible account. 
Whence comest thou ? Prom a perishable 
atom. Whither goest thou ? To a place 
of ashes, worms and maggots. Before 
whom art thou hereafter to render a respon- 
sible account? Before the Sovereign of 
the King of kings, the Holy One. Blessed 
be his name. — Rabbi Akabiah. 

USELESS KNOWLEDGE. 
Some there are that know the resorts and 
falls of business, that cannot sail into the 
main of it ; like a house that hath conve- 



248 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

nient stairs, but never a fair room. — Lord 
Bacon. 

USURY. 

1. Usury bringeth the treasury of a realm 
into few hands ; for the usurer being at 
certainties, and others at uncertainties, 
at the end, most of the money will be in 
the box. — Ibid. 

2. The Usurer lives upon the labor of 
the industrious ; he eats his bread in the 
sweat of another man's brow. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

UTTERANCE. 
Many a man thinks admirably well, who 
has a poor utterance ; while others have a 
charming manner of speech, but their 
thoughts are trifling. — Isaac Watts. 

WIT. 
1. Wit, as it implies a certain uncommon 
reach, and vivacity of thought, is an excel- 
lent talent, very fit to be employed in the 
search of Truth, and very capable of as- 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 247 

sisting to discern and embrace it. — Bishop 
Burnet. 

2. Wit, lying most in the assemblage of 
ideas, and putting those together with quick- 
ness and variety, whereto can be found any 
resemblance or congruity, thereby to make 
up pleasant pictures in the fancy. Judg- 
ment, on the contrary, lies in separating 
carefully one from another, ideas where 
can be found the least difference, thereby 
to avoid being misled by similitude. — 
Locke. 

3. The definition of Wit is only this, 
that it is a propriety of thoughts and words : 
or, in other terms, thoughts and words ele- 
gantly adapted to the subject. — Dryden. 

4. Where there is a real stock of Wit, 
the wittiest sayings will yet be found, in a 
great measure the issues of chance. — Dr. 
South. 

5. Wit is like the engraver's burine, or 
the corrodings of aquafortis, which engrave 
and indent the characters so that they can 
never be effaced. — Essay on the Govern- 
ment or the Tongue. 



248 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 



WITTY MEN. 
Without the subordinate good qualities 
of natural good sense, good nature and dis- 
cretion, a man of wit and learning would 
be painful to the generality of mankind, 
instead of being pleasing. Witty men are 
apt to imagine they are agreeable as such, 
and by that means grow the worst com-, 
panions imaginable. They deride the ab- 
sent, or rally the present, in a wrong manner; 
not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a 
man till he is uneasy in his seat, or ungrace- 
fully distinguished from the rest of the 
company, you equally hurt him. — Addi- 
son. 

WOMEN. 

1. The corruption of the world indulges 
women in great vanity ; and mankind seem 
to consider them in no other view than as 
painted idols, that are to allure and gratify 
their passions. — Bishop Law. 

2. Women are soft, mild, pitiful and 

flexible. — Shakspeare. 

3. Women in their nature are much more 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 249 

gay and joyous than men ; whether it be 
that their blood is more refined, their fibres 
more delicate, and their animal spirits more 
light ; vivacity is the gift of women, gravity 
of men. — Addison. 

4. Men have knowledge and strength to 
fit them for action : Women affection, for 
their better compliance ; and herewith 
beauty to compensate for their subjection, 
by giving them an equivalent regency over 
men. — Grew. 

WORDS. 
As conceptions are the images of things 
to the mind within itself, so are words or 
names the marks of those conceptions, to 
the minds of them we converse with. — 
Dr. South. 

WORDS v. THINGS. 
Though a linguist should pride himself 
to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the 
world into ; yet, if he had not studied the 
solid things in them as well as the words 
and lexicons, he were nothing so much to 
be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman 



250 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

completely wise in his mother dialect only. 
— Milton. 

WORDS UTTERED IN AFFLICTION. 
Do not accuse a man for what he utters 
in affliction. — Maimonides. 

WORK. 
All the world is perpetually at work, 
only that our poor mortal lives should pass 
the happier for that little time we possess 
them, or else end the better when we lose 
them. Upon this occasion riches came to 
be coveted, honors esteemed, friendship 
pursued, and virtues admired. — - Sir Wil- 
liam Temple. 

WORSHIP. 

1. First worship God ; he that forgets 

to pray, 
Bids not himself good-morrow, nor 
good-day. — Thomas Randolph. 

2. The law of nature teacheth that the 
true and living God ought to be worshipped, 
and that a sufficient and convenient time is 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 251 

to be set apart for the same. — Thomas 
White. 

WORSHIPFUL SINNERS. 
When old age comes upon a good and 
temperate man, it comes alone, bringing no 
other evil with it ; but when it comes to 
wait upon a great and worshipful sinner, 
who, for many years, has eaten well, and 
done ill, it is attended by a long train of 
rheums. — Dr. South. 

YOUTH. 

1. Youth is the vernal season of life, 
and the blossoms it then puts forth, are in- 
dications of those future fruits which are 
to be gathered in the succeeding periods. — 
Cicero. 

2. This stage of life, unless under the 
direction of good principles, is very danger- 
ous to pass through. The passions of 
young people ride them at full speed ; they 
want both experience to guide, and temper 
to hold them in. So that neither bogs nor 
precipices can stop them; for when they 
move fastest they see least. Like a ship 



252 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

without a pilot, they are apt to be overset 
by the violence of desire. They play their 
appetite at large, and chop at every thing 
that comes in their way. They are as 
prodigal of their person and their pocket, 
as if their senses could not wear out, nor 
the fund of life and futurity ever decay. — 
Jeremy Collier. 

3. As it is fit to read the best authors to 
youth first, so let them be of the openest 
and clearest ; as Livy before Sallust, Sid- 
ney before Donne. — Ben Jonson. 

4. If this were seen, 
The happiest youth viewing his pro- 
gress through, 

What perils past, what crosses do en- 
sue, 

Would shut the book, and sit him down 
and die ? — Shakspeare. 

5. Here be all the pleasures 
That fancy can beget on youthful 

thoughts, 
When the fresh blood grows lively 

and returns, 
Brisk as the April buds in primrose 

season. — Milton. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 253 

THE YOUTH OF GENIUS. 
1. In reading the memoirs of a man of 
genius, we often reprobate the domestic 
persecutions of those who opposed his in- 
clinations. No poet but is moved with 
indignation at the recollection of the tutor 
of the Port-Royal thrice burning the ro- 
mance which Racine at length got by 
heart ; no geometrician but bitterly inveighs 
against the father of Pascal, for not suffer- 
ing him to study Euclid, which he at 
length understood without studying. The 
father of Pertarch cast to the flames the 
poetical library of his son, amidst the 
shrieks, the groans and the tears of the 
youth. Yet this burnt-offering neither 
converted Petrarch into a sober lawyer, nor 
deprived him of the Roman laurel. The 
uncle of Alfieri, for more than twenty 
years, suppressed the poetical character of 
the noble bard ; he was a poet without 
knowing how to write a verse, and Nature, 
like a hard creditor, exacted, with redoubled 
interest, all the genius which the uncle had 
so long kept from her. These are the men 



254 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

whose inherent impulse no human opposi- 
tion, and even no adverse education, can 
deter from proving them to be great men. — 

D'lSRAELI. 

2. Many brave young minds have often- 
times, through hearing the praises and fa- 
mous eulogies of worthy men, been stirred 
up to effect the like commendations. — 
Spenser. 

YOUTH, EDUCATION OF. 
Men glory in raising great and magnifi- 
cent structures, and find a secret pleasure 
to see sets of their own planting grow up 
and flourish : but surely it is a greater and 
more glorious work, to build up a man, to 
see a youth of our own planting, from the 
small beginnings and advantages we have 
given him, to grow up into a considerable 
fortune, to take root in the world, and to 
shoot up to such a height, and spread his 
branches so wide, that we who first 
planted him, may ourselves find comfort 
and shelter under his shadow. — Arch- 
bishop Tillotson. 



A THOUGHT-BOOK. 255 



ZUINGLIUS'S HEART. 

In the beginning of the Reformation, 
when Zuinglius was slain in a battle by 
the Papists, and his body burnt, his heart 
was found entire in the ashes ; from whence, 
saith the historian, his enemies concluded 
the obdurateness of his heart ; but his 
friends, the firmness and sincerity of it in 
the true religion. Both these censures 
seem to be built upon the same ground of 
fancy and imagination : but it is a wise and 
well grounded observation, which Thuanus 
the historian, who was himself of the Ro- 
man Communion, makes upon it, adeo tur- 
batis odio ant amove animis, ut Jit in 
religionis disse?itionibas, pro se quisque 
omnia superstitione interpretatar ; " thus," 
saith he, " men's minds being prejudiced 
beforehand, by love or hatred, as it com- 
monly falls out in differences of religion, 
each party superstitiously interprets the 
little circumstances of every event in favor 
of itself." 

Every thing hath two handles ; a good 
wit and a strong imagination may find 



256 A THOUGHT-BOOK. 

something in every judgment, whereby he 
may, with some appearance of reason, turn 
the cause of the judgment upon his adver- 
sary. Fancy is an endless thing, and if 
we will go this way to work, then he that 
hath the best wit, is like to be the best 
interpreter of God's Judgments. — Arch- 
bishop TlLLOTSON. 



THE END. 



AT 102 AOANATOZ. 



CONTENTS. 



\ 



Addison's Style .... Johnson 
Addison on Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero Addison 
Admiration . TUlotson, Glanville, Addison, Watts 
The Affections .... Hooker 

Almighty Power South, Hakappar, Raleigh, Taylor, 

The Mishna Tor ah 



Ambition 

The Amusements of a People 

Anagrammatism 

Our Ancestors . 

Ancients and Moderns 

Ancient Knighthood 

Anger . . . 

Anglicisms and Gallicisms 

Aristotle's Morality . 

Arithmetic 

Arrogance 

Art 

Artifice of Faction . 

Assaults of the Devil . 

Assurance . 

Atheism 

Athenian Juries . 

Avarice 



Taylor 

Robertson 

Camden 

Taylor, Addison 

Collier 

. King Arthur 

Leontius, Locke, South 

Le Maitre 

Rett 

Johnson 

jfflian, Collier 

. Jonson 

Collier 

. Taylor 

. South, Hammond 

Bacon, Collier, Bentley 

. Jones 

V Estrange, Collier 



PAGE 
1 
1 
1 

2 

3 

4 

6 

7 

S 

9 

10 

10 

11 

12 

12 

13 

14 

14 

14 

15 

16 

17 

17 



XIV 


CONTENTS. 




Lord Bacon on Science 


and Literature . . Bacon 


IS 


Bad Company 


. Augustine 


19 


Bad Soil . 


Arbuthnot 


20 


Biblical Writers 


Duchal 


20 


Biography 


. Burgh, Mackintosh, Addison 


20 


Blank Verse 


. Rett 


21 


Bluntness 


Boyle 


22 


Blustering . 


Dryden, L'Estrange 


23 


Body and Mind 


Collier 


23 


Bolingbroke ! s Ignorance . . . Newton 


23 


Books . 


Bacon, Collier 


.26 


Books v. Travellers 


. Kuittner, Ferguson 


27 


Bravery 


Aristotle, Addison 


29 


The British Monarchy 


. Burke 


29 


Brotherhood . 


Locke 


31 


The Business of a Scholar . . Johnson 


31 


Calumny 


Meander 


32 


Castles in the Air 


Sioift 


32 


Cause and Effect . 


Taylor 


33 


Chance . 


. Bentley 


33 


Charity, (Riches of) 


Broxcne 


34 


Charity Sermons 


, Broxcne, Hooker 


34 


Chatham's Eloquence 


. Chesterfield 


34 


Cheerfulness v. Mirth 


. Addison 


35 


Choice of Counsellors 


Sirach 


36 


Christian Fortitude . 


Dry den 


37 


The Church 


Pearson, Hooker 


37 


Church Music 


Collier 


37 


Church and State 


Bolingbroke 


39 


Church Union 


. . Hooker 


40 


Classic Ground 


. Kett, Johnson 


41 


Classic Writers 


. Blackstone 


43 


The Clergy . 


Milton, Clarendon 


44 


Clerical Flattery . 


Collier 


45 


Clerical Pollutions 


. Taylor 


45 


Clerical Studies . 


Naplcton 


46 


Clerical Writings 


West 


47 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Commerce . Brown, Campbell, Locke, Rett 

Conscience . . . Swift, South, Addison 

Cosmopolity of Literature . . D ) Israeli 

Covetousness . Locke, Taylor, Tillotson, Collier 
Critics . . . . Collier, Watts 

Criticism . . Johnson, Locke, Swift, D' Israeli 



Death 

The Death of Socrates . 

Democracy . 

Dependence 

Description v. Definition 

Desire . 

Despair 

Despise Nothing 

Despondency 

Detraction 

Devisers 

Dialectics 

Discretion . 

Discussion 

Disputation 

Dissimulation . 

The Drama 

Dryden on Homer and Chaucer 

Duelling . 

Education 

Emulation 

Ends of Language . 

Ends of Man 

The End of Pleasure 



Swift, Collier, Taylor 

. Plato 

Plutarch 

. Boyle, Collier 

Watts 

Locke 

Locke, Collier 

. Azai, Talmud 

Collier, L'Estrange, Locke 

Epictetus, Browne, De Balzac 

Greta 

Boyle 

Swift, Collier 

South 

Locke 

Bacon 

. Eastathius, Jonson 

Dryden 

Taylor, Collier 

Hooker 

Collier, Spratt 

Locke 

Barrow 

Collier 

Frederic the Great 



English History 

The English People De Montesquieu, Brissot, Vattel 

Envy ...... Collier 

Esteem ..... Collier 

Evangelic Religion .... Milton 

Every Man has his Price . , . Taylor 

Evidence ..... Bentley 



47 
49 
51 
51 
53 
54 
57 
59 
66 
66 
67 
67 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
71 
71 
72 
72 
72 
73 
74 
74 
75 
75 
76 
77 



79 
80 
80 
81 
81 
-81 



XVI 


CONTENTS. 




Evidence of Christianity . Jenyns, Templet Tillotson 


81 


Examples 


. Seneca , Rogers, Du Fresnoy 


83 


Excellence . 


Reynolds 


84 


Excess . 


. Bacon, Donne 


84 


Eye of a Painter . 


. Richardson 


85 


Faith . 


Swift, Milton, Pascal 


85 


False Conclusions 


Browne 


86 


Farce . 


. Dryden 


86 


Fate 


Justin Martyr 


86 


Felicity of Man 


Boyle 


87 


Fellowship 


Locke 


87 


Female Rhymes 


. Cowley, Dryden 


87 


Fickleness 


Addison 


88 


Fiction 


• . Dryden 


S3 


The Firmament . 


Raleigh, Derham, Stackhouse 


8S 


Flatterers 


Bacon 


92 


Flattery . 


Collier, Shakspeare 


92 


Fluency of Speech 


Swift 


92 


Food for the Mind 


Plutarch 


93 


Foresight 


Rogers 


93 


Formalities 


. Bacon 


93 


Fortitude 


Locke, Collier 


94 


Free Trade 


. Child 


94 


Free-will 


Locke 


95 


Friends and Enemies 


Lavater, Addison, Collier 


95 


Friendship Aristotle, 


Cicero, Addison, Collier # Ennius, 






Slrach 


96 


God's Creatures 


Hooker, Cicero, Pascal 


98 


A Good Man . 


Taylor 


100 


A Good Name 


Talmud 


100 


Goodness 


. Collier, Sidney 


100 


Good Intentions . 


Taylor 


101 


Goodness of God 


Search 


102 


Government 


Temple, Collier, Swift 


103 


Gray's Opinion of Tacitus . . . Gray 


104 


Greatness 


Locke, Sidney, Collier 


105 


Hereditary Fame 


. Collier, Swift, Addison 


106 



CONTENTS. 



XV11 



Milton 

Collier 

Justin Martyr 

Bacon 

. South 

Temple 

Jortin, Justin Martyr 

. Watts, Tillotson 



Heresy- 
Heroes 

Hesiod's Theogony 
Hollow Church-Papists 
Hollowness 
Home . 

Homer's Religion 
Homonyma v. Synonyma 
Honor Swift, Taylor, Bacon, Collier, Wake, Addison 
Hope . . . . ... Collier 

Human Life ..... Plato 

Human Nature Taylor, Justin Martyr, Burnet 

Humility . Collier, Taylor, Coleridge, Eusiathius 
Hypocrites . . . Eustathius, South 

Ideas ..... Locke, Kelt 

Idleness .... Locke, Collier 

Idolatry . . . . . South 

Ignorance .... South, Collier 

Imagination . . Swift, Collier. Bacon 

Immateriality of the Soul Tillotson, Watts, Collier, 

Heylin 
Independence .... Pope, Collier 

Infancy of Science .... Collier 

Innate Principles .... Locke 

Instinct, Natural and Argumentative . Taylor 

Intellectual Powers .... Milton 

Intellectual Pleasures . . . Milton 

Intemperance ..... Collier 

Johnson's Dictionary . . . Nares 

Johnson's Lives of the Poets . . Kelt 

Knavery .... South, Collier 

Knowledge 

Knowledge not always Power 



Law 

Laziness 



South 

Locke, Collier 

Collier, Addison, 

Shakspeare 

Hooker, Anacharsis 

Locke, South, Bacon 



107 
108 
109 
110 
110 
111 
111 
112 
113 
116 
116 
117 
118 
120 
122 
123 
123 
123 
124 

124 
126 
126 
127 
127 
129 
131 
131 
131 
132 
133 
133 

134 
135 
135 



XV111 


CONTEXTS. 


Leaders 




. Sicift 


Learning . Milton 


Collier, Bacon, Locke, Ascham, 






Addison 


Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity 


Taylor, Locke, 




Collier 


Sicift, L'Estrange 


Literary Reward 


Milton, Malthus, Ethics of the 






Fathers, Blackstone 


The Lord's Prayer . 


. 


Taylor, Augustine 


Love 


. 


. South 


Love of Money 


. 


Taylor 


Love of Truth . 


. 


. Bacon 


Mammon 


. 


Spenser 


Masters and Servants 


. 


Taylor 



Mathematics .... Locke 

Matter of Prayer Taylor, Dry den, Persius, Addison 
Meditation ..... Taylor 
Men of Knowledge and Men of Taste . D'lsraeli 
Men v. Books ..... Collier 
Men of Valor .... Bacon 

Mental Pleasures .... Collier 

Mental Prayer .... Taylor 

Milton's Childhood .... Milton 
Milton's Prayer for the Church . . Milton 

Mind your own Business . . . Terence 

Miracles . r • . Collier, Locke, Bentley 

Moderation ..... Taylor 
Monkish Hatred of Literature . . Chaniatcs 

Moral Effects of Seasons of Mourning upon Nations 

Taylor 
Morality of the Gospel . . . . Locke 

Natural Religion . . . Tay J or, Wilkins 

Nature . . . Wordsworth, Boyle, Collier 

Nature and Art .... Aristotle 
Old Wise Spirits .... Taylor 

Opiates .... Collier, Bentley 

Opinion ...... Jonson 



136 
136 

133 

139 
143 
143 
143 
144 
144 
145 
145 
145 
143 
148 
149 
150 
150 
150 
151 
152 
153 
153 
155 
156 

157 
153 
159 
160 
162 
162 
163 
164 



CONTENTS. 


XIX 


Origin of Mabometanism 


Bacon 


164 


Origin of the Mind 


Collier, Raleigh 


164 


Origin of Power 


Davenant 


166 


Perfection 


L'Estravge, Hooker, King 


166 


Post-Augustan Writers 


. . . Kett 


168 


Posthumous Fame 


Addison, Collier 


169 


Prayer 


Talmud, Wtiite, Taylor 


170 


Pre-eminence . 


. Juvenal 


171 


Prejudice . 


. Hurd 


172 


Prerogative t , 


Bacon, Hall 


172 


Pride 


Collier 


172 


Prudence 


Milton, Collier 


173 


Character of Queen Anne 


. Swift 


173 


Reading 


Watts, Bacon, Collier 


173 


Reality 


Cheyne 


175 


Reason Milton, Watts, Collier, Hooker, Swift, Locke 


175 


The Preformation . 


Robertson 


177 


Reformers 


Phalaris, King Charles 


178 


Regality 


King Charles 


178 


Religion 


. Wilkins, Taylor 


179 


Remorse 


Collier 


180 


Revelation Butler, Pi 


iley, Sprat, De Montesquieu 


180 


Revenge . Taylor, 


Collier, Euripides, Johnson 


181 


Reveries . 


Addison 


183 


Riches 


Locke, Pope 


183 


Rise and Fall of Rome . 


Raleigh 


184 


Rivalry 


Addison 


184 


Robbery 


. South 


184 


Rudiments . 


Locke 


185 


Sagacity 


Locke 


185 


Sapience 


Grew 


1S5 


Sarcasms 


Watts 


1S5 


Satire . Bacon, Cleveland, Addison^ Tillotson, Swift, 






Roscommon 


1S6 


Self-conceit 


Collier 


1S8 


Self-denial 


. Scldcn 


188 



XX CONTENTS. 




Self-knowledge Pascal, Collier 


183 


Self-praise ...... Xenophon 


139 


Self-teaching Jonson 


189 


The Senses . . . Linnams, Holder, Collier 


190 


Sensuality .... Taylor, & Estrange 


191 


Sir Philip Sidney's Last Words . . . Greville 


193 


Slander . Theophrastus, Epictetus, Milton, Nelson, 




South 


193 


Sloth . . . L'Estrange, Collier, South 


195 




195 


Sluggishness ..... Locke 


196 




196 


Smiles ..... Milton, Collier 


196 


Solitude Aristotle, Sidney, D' Israeli, Taylor, Bacon, 




Dryden 


197 


Soul and Body ..... Collier 


193 


Spiritual Learning . . . Taylor 


199 


Sublimity . . . Raleigh, Stackhouse 


200 


Success . . Johnson, Collier, Hammond 


202 


Sudden Death ..... Taylor 


203 


Superstition .... Bacon 


207 


Suspicion ..... Bacon 


208 


Swearing . . Browne, Earl of Pembroke 


208 


Talents Misplaced .... Johnson 


208 


Talk .... Ascham, Collier 


209 



Temperance . Socrates, Dodsley, Milton, Temple, 

Collier 209 
Temples to the Deity . Montesquieu, Epictetus, 

St. Paid, Shakspeare 211 

Temporal Ends .... Taylor 212 

The number Ten .... Brown 212 

Thought .... Dryden, Addison 213 

Time . . Bacon, Grew, Locke, Malebranche 213 

Timidity ..... Xenophanes 215 

Titles .... Addison, Milton 215 

Transmigration of Science . Peter the Great 216 



CONTENTS. XXI 

Translation .... Maimonides 217 

Transubstantiation . Locke, Hooker, Milton 218 

Travel . Bacon, Milton, Mlddleton, DeVolney, Kett 219 

Travelling Companions . Knox, Kett, Sidney 223 

Triunity of Justice . . . Raleigh 224 

Triunities of Poetry .... Southey 225 

True Courage ..... Collier 226 

True Riches .... Seneca 226 

True Morality ..... Locke 226 

Truth . Wolla-ston, Collier, Locke, Glanville 227 

Tuition ..... Locke, Watts 223 
Tully and Tillotson on the Immortality of the Soul 

Tillotson 22S 

Tyranny .... Collier, Sidney 231 
Vanity . Editor, Swift, Hooker, UEstrange, Collier, 

Raleigh 231 
Vanity in Dress . Hale, Raleigh, Seneca, Stobceus, 

Edwards 235 

Veiled Truths ..... Pascal 237 

Virtue .... Watts, Locke 237 

Vixen . . . , . Verstegan 238 

Voltaire's Last Words . . . Seward 233 

Unnecessary Chains . . Taylor, Eustathius 239 

Unprofitable Occupations Taylor, Cumberland 244 

Useful Knowledge . . . Akabiah 245 

Useless Knowledge .... Bacon 245 

Usury ..... Bacon, Collier 246 

Utterance ..... Watts 246 
Wit . Burnet, Locke, Dryden, South, Essay on the 

Government of the Tongue 246 

Witty Men ..... Addison 248 

Women . . Laic, Shakspeare, Addison, Grew 248 

Words ..... South 249 

Words v. Things .... Milton 249 

Words Uttered in Affliction . Maimonides 250 

Work ...... Temple 250 



JL&&6 44 



XXI 1 



CONTENTS. 



Worship .... Randolph^ While 
Worshipful Sinners .... South 
Youth . Cicero, Collier, Jonson, Shakspeare, Milton 
The Youth of Genius . . D'Israeli, Spenser 

Youth, Education of . . . . Tillotson 

Zuinsrlius's Heart • . . Tillotson 



250 

251 
251 



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